


i die with variety

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Immortal Tony Stark, M/M, dying tony stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27432925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: The first time that Tony dies, he is four and he’s building his very first circuit board from scratch. He’s connecting the finished product to the multimeter to check the voltage, the current and resistance, when a lead slips, a shock ricochets up through his spine, and he sees black.He’s on his back, when his eyes flutter open, and he’s staring up at the ceiling. He gets up, frowning, rubbing at his eyes, and then, he sees the frayed wire on the end of the multimeter.Huh, he thinks and moves on almost immediately.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600798
Comments: 94
Kudos: 203
Collections: Iron Husbands Bingo, Marvel, Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, this is a 'Tony keeps dying, over and over again' fic, so mind that when you read it.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: deaths in various, graphic circumstances, violence, alcohol poisoning, alcohol-related death, domestic violence.
> 
> The title for this fic comes from Sylvia Plath's poem, The Jailer.
> 
> Thank you so much to Faustess for betaing this monstrosity!
> 
> Title: i die with variety  
> Collaborator Name: Simi  
> Card Number: 4066  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27432925/chapters/67059172  
> Square Filled: A1 - WTF  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Tony/Rhodey  
> Rating: Explicit  
> Major Tags: major character death, immortality in a way but it will end at some time, explicit sexual content.  
> Warnings for this Chapter: deaths in various, graphic circumstances, violence, alcohol poisoning, alcohol-related death, domestic violence.  
> Summary: The first time that Tony dies, he is four and he’s building his very first circuit board from scratch. He’s connecting the finished product to the multimeter to check the voltage, the current and resistance, when a lead slips, a shock ricochets up through his spine, and he sees black.  
> He’s on his back, when his eyes flutter open, and he’s staring up at the ceiling. He gets up, frowning, rubbing at his eyes, and then, he sees the frayed wire on the end of the multimeter.  
>  _Huh_ , he thinks and moves on almost immediately.  
> Word Count: 3992
> 
> This is also written for the "words unsaid" square (O3) for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

The first time that Tony dies, he is four and he’s building his very first circuit board from scratch. He’s connecting the finished product to the multimeter to check the voltage, the current and resistance, when a lead slips, a shock ricochets up through his spine, and he sees black.

He’s on his back, when his eyes flutter open, and he’s staring up at the ceiling. He gets up, frowning, rubbing at his eyes, and then, he sees the frayed wire on the end of the multimeter.

 _Huh_ , he thinks and moves on almost immediately.

* * *

The second time Tony dies, he is five, and he is swimming, and suddenly, he is going under, like there is a hand around his ankle, pulling him down, and his lungs start to burn, and he can’t seem to pull himself out of the water.

His lungs burn and burn, and his throat tightens reflexively, and his eyes roll back in his head.

He knows nothing after that.

He wakes up on cold, rough ground, stones around the pool, shuddering, and then, he turns onto his side, throwing up what seems to be a well of water, his eyes stinging with tears and his throat aching, and he looks up at the sun that feels like it’s sweltering him from the inside out. His eyes slide to Jarvis, who is kneeling over him, the strands of hair at his temples grey, and his eyes bloodshot and red, and his hands shaking.

“Jarvis?” he rasps out. “Were you crying?”

Jarvis lets out a sob, an ugly, wracked thing, and he pulls Tony into a hug that crushes his bones, but he gladly wraps his arms around Jarvis in turn.

Jarvis’ hugs are the best hugs.

* * *

After he’s soothed Jarvis out of his terror, after he’s reassured the older man that he’s fine, he feels fine, Tony pads his way back into the mansion, up the stairs, towards his room. His skin feels flushed, pulled tight across the bones, and he’s shivering, and Jarvis had promised him to run him a bath, but Tony had decided against it, preferring just the opportunity to rub himself down with a towel and change his clothes.

Jarvis didn’t like it, of course, and complained that he hated the smell of chlorine, but he’d agreed to what Tony wanted.

Unless it was a matter of life or death or ice cream, Jarvis usually agreed to what Tony wanted.

Tony closes the door to his room and shrugs out of his swimwear, finding a pair of soft, woolly track pants that he can push up, along with a T-shirt, one of Jarvis’ _I swear I don’t have anything that isn’t haute couture butler chic_ shirts, and that’s when he notices it.

A black tally mark, a long line, as if done in permanent marker, on the slope of his hip, evident against his dark brown skin. Tony touches it in confusion, wondering if he had just slipped with one of his marker pens earlier, but it doesn’t rub off or smear when he pushes at it. There is another one beside it, just as thick, just as dark, and it doesn’t rub off or smear either.

The door opens with a shrill little sound, and Tony twists his head.

His mother is standing in the doorway, her hair flying out of the plait that she normally keeps it in, and she storms inside.

“Jarvis told me what happened, _kannu_. Are you alright?” Maria demands, landing on the floor on her knees, her hands grasping him by the shoulders.

Tony rolls his eyes. “I’m fine, Amma.”

“Jarvis says that you were not breathing,” Maria says, her voice low, as she peers at him, at every inch, scouring for some sign of injury. “I should take you to the hospital. I will have Jarvis bring around the car-”

“Amma, no,” Tony shrugs off her hands. “I’m fine. I don’t know what happened. I was swimming, and I guess I must have gone too far into the deep end, and I went under. Jarvis got me out. I’m _fine_.”

Maria looks stubborn. “I don’t like this, _kannu_.”

“Amma, I’m fine.”

Maria touches the back of her hand to his forehead, as if fever is a symptom of drowning. “I still think we should take you to the hospital. You don’t look too good.”

“I just want to dry off and change my clothes,” Tony says, a pout beginning to form on his lower lip.

Maria shakes her head. “No, you should go and have a shower. I can smell the chlorine in your hair. It’s making me sick,” she says, sternly.

“Fine.”

Maria’s face softens. “I think there’s still some _payasam_ in the fridge. I can heat it up for you, if you want?”

Tony nods, his stomach beginning to rumble, as if alerting him to the fact that it’s lunch time.

“The vermicelli one, right?” Tony clarifies, because the one with _paruppu_ always makes his stomach turn and he has to down it in one gulp if it’ll ever settle in his stomach.

“Of course,” Maria huffs, as if there could never be any doubt. “But-”

She looks down at her watch, gleaming in the light of his bedroom (one of his father’s many apology gifts for having missed their anniversary last year, Tony remembers, because he was looking for Captain America in the Arctic, and he’d begged to go with him, but his father had patted him on the head, perfunctorily and dismissively, and told him that he was too young).

“-after lunch, I think, because it’s already 2:00PM. I ground some _dosa maavu_ this morning; how does that sound?”

Tony taps his lower lip, thoughtfully. “Do you have _podi_?”

“Chutney or _miligai_?”

“Chutney, it’s sweeter,” Tony reasons.

Maria looks down at him, fondly, and runs her hand over his hair, it coming back wet. She stares down at it in disgust.

“Go and shower. I will be downstairs.”

“Okay, _amma_ ,” Tony promises.

“Do you need any help in the shower?”

“No!” Tony rolls his eyes. “I’m five, Amma. I’m perfectly capable of using a shower by myself.”

Maria purses her lips thin, as if she’s biting back a laugh. “Okay, fine, my big boy, you’ll let me or Jarvis know if you need any help, right?”

Tony takes on a long-suffering expression. “Yes, Amma.”

“Okay, _kannu_ , don’t be too long.”

Maria leaves the room afterwards, and the smell of Hamam soap leaves with her, which Tony has always associated with his mother. He stares down at his clothes and the damp stains marking it, and his hair which is equally wet and sticking close to his scalp. He knows that if he doesn’t wash it, it’ll just become greasy and thick and disgusting to even touch.

He sighs and takes off the clothes that he’d just put on. His eyes flit to the markings on his hip, rubbing at them again. They don’t come off.

Maybe they’ll come off in the shower, with some soap, he reasons and wanders into the ensuite bathroom.

* * *

Over the next nine years, the markings become a focal point of his existence.

He quickly realises that he’s not some fortunate soul, escaping calamity by the skin of his teeth.

When he’s seven, he makes his first gun, and he’s never been prouder of himself.

He doesn’t show his father, because he remembers how his father reacted when he showed him the circuit board, how the smile faded, how angry and quiet he got, how tense, how he didn’t want to look at Tony anymore and how easily he shoved him into his mother’s arms and wandered off into his workshop for what seemed like days, and he doesn’t want to be faced with that again, the stone dropping into his gut like he knows something terrible is going to happen.

Years later, he will understand what that reaction was; he will understand that his father was jealous of him, resentful of him, couldn’t bear the idea that his son was _better_ than him. He will understand that his father couldn’t deal with his own mediocrity, couldn’t deal with his son’s genius, and decided to blame a four-year-old boy for all of his failures and flaws.

His hand slips on the trigger, the barrel pointed straight at his face, and there’s a loud bang and something blowing up in his face, and he hits the ground.

He wakes up ten minutes later, and he touches his face, worriedly, panic clawing at his throat, and his hands come back clean, just dirty with soot, but no blood. He runs to the nearest bathroom, hands grappling against the edge of the sink.

He stares at himself in the mirror.

His face looks normal, no wounds or anything, and he touches it to make sure that he is still looking at his reflection, fingers shoving at the fat on his face, pushing all parts of it to see if something awful will happen, like slivers of his skin will just melt off his face to show the bone and strands of muscles underneath.

Tony shudders at the very thought, but minutes pass and nothing changes on his face, nothing moves, nothing falls off, and it seems normal.

He should have died, he realises.

He shot himself in the face, and Tony’s seen enough movies and war reels when his father is too drunk in his study to realise that Tony’s in and out with them under his arms, to know that when you shoot yourself or someone else in the face, you’re going to die.

But Tony _isn’t_ dead.

There was a bang, and he hit the ground, but he woke up, and there was no pain. No pain, at all.

He thinks of the circuit board when he was four. He thinks of the pool when he was five.

He should have died those two times as well, but he didn’t.

Everything went black, and then, he woke up, and he was fine.

He should have died, though.

He should have died, and he didn’t.

* * *

That knowledge forms the way that Tony experiences life from that moment onwards.

It happens a lot over the next few years, mostly because Tony doesn’t think the same way that others think, and sometimes, he gets so involved in things that he doesn’t realise what he’s doing, and then, his hands are slipping and everything is going black, and he’s waking up.

It’s the fourth time that it happens when he remembers the marks on his hip, and then, finally, he makes the correlation between the marks on his hip and the times that he’s died, and panic claws at his throat.

Whatever this is, whatever is being done to him, it’s marking him at the same time, and he doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be scared.

He is; although, he doesn’t ever tell that to anyone.

* * *

He’s thirteen when he has sex for the first time.

By this stage, he has six marks, and they’re no longer just on his hip, and they’re all ugly.

Tony hates them, hates that when he strips off, he can see them and they are proof of how stupid, how odd he really is.

He waits for it, when he takes his clothes off in front of Ty, waits for the disdain, the revulsion, when the marks on his hip are bared to him, and he knows Ty’s face is about to curdle the same way that it does when Tony does something to piss him off. He knows that Ty is about to say something awful to him, something that makes him curl in on himself in an attempt to protect himself and all the wounds across his body where his insides are showing and bleeding out, something that makes the heat rise to his skin, the flush of shame, and makes his eyes sting even if he’s a stubborn fuck and he won’t ever let them fall.

 _Stark men are made of iron, Tony_ , and he never forgets that, never allows himself to forget that.

Ty doesn’t look at them strangely, though, funnily enough.

Tony thinks that Ty thinks they’re some weird, Hindu, tribal tattoo, and while the assumption grates at Tony (he’s never shied away from his religion, his language, his culture, his mother’s and his father’s, even if his father would prefer him to), he would prefer to not get caught him a conversation about the marks on his body and where they came from and what they mean.

They kiss, and they tumble together into the bed, and Tony forgets about them, and Ty never touches them.

* * *

When Tony is seventeen, his cheek is throbbing from where Ty slapped him across the face, and he throws Ty out onto his ass, after threatening to carve his eyes out of his skull with the ever-sharp screwdriver that Tony carries on him constantly.

He shuts the door, breathes, leans his forehead against the door, turns and sinks to the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees.

DUM-E whines in the background, and Tony lifts his head, smiling as fondly as he possibly can, and then, he searches for a bottle of vodka to drown himself in.

* * *

He wakes up on his bed, his head lolling, and Rhodey’s face is looming in front of him, blurry before it solidifies, and then, he can spot the dark circles under his eyes, like Rhodey had been punched twice over, misery pulling his face in tight.

“What,” Tony licks his lips, and his mouth tastes like death, “What happened?”

“You…” Rhodey chokes, rubbing his knuckles over his hair. “You’re alive? You’re okay?”

“I think I may have… drunk a liquor store,” Tony says, dully, sitting up, his head throbbing.

“No, no, you drank a liquor store, and when I found you, you were on the floor, and DUM-E was with you, and he was nudging you with his claw, and you weren’t responding. I got you onto the bed, I checked your pulse, and you weren’t breathing, and you were going cold. I almost called the ambulance for you, and then, you just woke up like you’re a fucking vampire now.” Rhodey pauses. “Tony, did you make something in the lab?”

Tony groans and twists his head into the pillow. “No.”

“Cause if you did, you can tell me, and I’ll protect you, but you have to tell me.”

“Rhodey, I am not a vampire. I did not make anything in the lab that would or will turn me into a vampire.” Tony sits up, folding his legs underneath him. “I need to tell you something.”

“Go ahead,” Rhodey says, narrowing his eyes.

Tony licks his dry mouth and slips off the bed. He pulls down the edge of his jeans, and Rhodey doesn’t blink.

“See these,” Tony says, his voice clean and clear, brushing the pad of his thumb over the black lines over his sharp hip bone.

They don’t smear; they have never smeared.

There are more, on his thighs and his back and the soles of his feet and his belly and his shoulders, and he’s always just pretended that he’s clumsy with a marker and he gets fucked on caffeine and alcohol and it doesn’t end well, when he’s got a marker in his hand.

“Yeah,” Rhodey says, softly.

“When I was four, you know, I made a circuit board from scratch?”

“Yeah, I know. I saw the newspaper spread.”

Tony swallows hard. “I electrocuted myself,” he says, honestly. “I’m, uh, I’m pretty sure about that. Everything went black, and I woke up on the floor, and I just… I don’t know, I guess I didn’t think anything was wrong. I think, I think I thought everything was okay, so I just… I went on with what I was doing. I made the circuit board, and I showed it to my father, and watched the life die in his eyes, when he saw what I was capable of.” He shakes his head. “That’s a different story,” he says, bitterly, wringing his hands together. “When I was five, I think I drowned.”

Rhodey chokes. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah, I was in the pool, and something pulled me under, and I woke up on the, uh, on the stone, and Jarvis was giving me CPR, and he said I wasn’t breathing.” Tony frowns. “I didn’t think it was possible, and I just thought, I don’t know what I thought. Wow, I was really fucking stupid. And then, when I was seven, I shot myself in the face-”

“TONY.”

“What?” Tony says, brow furrowing.

“You just…” Rhodey blusters. “You _shot_ yourself in the face.”

Tony shrugs. “My finger slipped on the trigger. It happens.”

“You are terrifying,” Rhodey says, bluntly.

Tony grimaces. “Nah, I’m just kind of stupid.”

Rhodey’s face softens. “Tony, you are one of the least stupid people I know or probably will ever know.”

Tony shifts, uncomfortably, as a flush climbs onto his skin.

“You just…” Rhodey’s throat flexes. “You just wake up? And you’re just… you’re just fine?”

Tony nods. “Usually. I’ve never… I’ve never experienced any sort of injury or physical consequence from what happens to me.” He pauses. “Actually, that’s halfway a lie.” He lifts up his shirt to show the black lines stretching across his ribs. “That’s what happens,” he says, quietly.

Rhodey gnaws on his lower lip and stretches out his hand, his fingers brushing across the marks, as if to feel if they have some other texture other than bare skin.

Tony shudders, and Rhodey immediately draws his hand back, his face contorting like he fears that he’s done something wrong.

“Sorry-” he begins to say.

“No, don’t,” Tony says, quickly. “It’s not…” He sighs and squares his shoulders. “It’s not that I minded you touching me,” he says, half-shy, half-coy. “It’s just… your fingers are kind of cold.”

“Oh,” Rhodey says, lamely.

“They’re…” Tony takes a deep, steadying breath. “Every time it happens, every time that I… well, I _die_ , I wake up with one more mark. They started off on my hip, and then, they moved across my body.”

“How many do you have?”

“Eighteen,” Tony says, honestly.

Rhodey winces and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’ve died _eighteen_ times?”

“Like I said, I’m extraordinarily stupid,” Tony says, awkwardly.

“Do we, uh, do we need to find someone to talk to about this? Like a doctor or something?”

“We?” Tony feels the need to clarify.

Rhodey huffs like Tony’s personally offended him. “Yeah, _we_. Like hell you’re going to spill your guts to me and then completely sideline me out of the conversation. I’m not Robin, okay, Tony? I’m fucking Batman.”

“I’ve never… you’re the first person I’ve ever told,” Tony confesses. “Sometimes, I thought about telling Jarvis, because, you know, he wouldn’t have judged me. My mom wouldn’t have either. She might have dragged me to a temple, because she thought this was some curse from a past life or something, and prayer fixes everything, but they wouldn’t have thought much of it, but I guess I was…”

He trails off, but Rhodey finishes the sentence for him.

“Scared?”

Tony nods. “I was scared. I thought…” He looks away. “I’m Howard Stark’s son. I’m rich, you know? Absolutely fucking rich. Not billionaire rich, but, uh, maybe one day. But I’m also brown, and… well, I have an irrational fear of ending up like ET, you know? On a stretcher being vivisected so they can get to the bottom of what’s going on with me?”

“I feel you,” Rhodey says, with a knowing look in his eye. “But Tony, your parents wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“You’re probably right. My father’s too old to have any more children.” He pauses. “Although, Charlie Chaplin had kids in his seventies, didn’t he?” He closes his eyes. “Oh, my God, now I’m thinking about my father fathering more children and how he does all of the fathering, and wow, I really don’t want to be thinking about this-”

Rhodey laughs and wraps his arms around Tony, drawing a high, soft noise of surprise out of him. Tony hugs him back, of course, because Rhodey’s hugs are the best he’s ever felt, although he will always have a soft spot for Jarvis’ ones which remind him of those cinnamon roll cookies he used to make for baby Tony whenever he gave him a smile, and his mother’s hugs, of course.

To this day, he keeps a bar of Hamam soap in his apartment, just to remind himself of her.

Tony sighs and folds his face against Rhodey’s neck, where he’s warm and he can feel Rhodey’s pulse throb fast and wild.

“So, does this mean that you don’t think I’m a freak?”

Rhodey snorts. “Tony, of course I think you’re a freak. Do I think you’re a freak because you don’t seem to die? Yeah, sure, but, like a good freak, you know?”

“Rhodey?” he says, his voice muffled by his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“What the hell is a good freak?”

* * *

Rhodey kisses him the first time.

It happens the night before he’s due to leave for the Air Force for the first time, after he’s all done with his degree.

“What was that for?” Tony asks, stunned, his mouth on fire.

Rhodey shrugs. “I figured you were gonna do that at some point. I didn’t want to give you the luxury of lording it over me for the rest of our lives that you kissed me first.”

Tony makes a face. “I feel like that’s an unfair reason to kiss someone,” he muses aloud.

“Yeah, well, like I said, if you were ever going to do it, you should have probably done it by now,” Rhodey says, unsympathetically.

Tony scowls and dips his head down (he’s just a few centimetres taller than Rhodey, which happened in the last few months, and Rhodey’s resented it ever since). He catches his mouth with Rhodey’s, pressing down firm until Rhodey groans, and his mouth gives underneath his. Rhodey winds his arms around Tony’s waist, their bodies flattened against each other’s. Rhodey pushes forward, and Tony lets out a soft, desperate noise, as Rhodey’s tongue nudges forward, slides into Tony’s open mouth and curls behind his teeth.

Rhodey’s hands tighten around Tony’s hips to the point of bruising, and finally, the need to breathe becomes too much for Tony to bear and he has to break away, taking in a deep, steady gulp of air.

“Fuck,” he says, swallowing around nothing.

Rhodey looks just as wrecked as Tony feels.

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing his hand over his face.

“Rhodey,” Tony says, softly, staring down at the floor. “Rhodey, what are we doing?”

“Well, we were just making out, and it was pretty good,” Rhodey offers. “But I’m guessing you’re talking about what prompted the making out.”

Tony nods.

“Tony,” Rhodey sighs. “Tony, you have to know that I have feelings for you.”

Tony startles. “No, I did not know that.”

“Tony,” Rhodey says, “Tony, I like you. I’ve liked you for a while, but I… I, look, I was, I didn’t want to say anything, because you were with that douchebag, and then, you finally knocked that douchebag on your ass, and I thought, maybe, we might have a chance, and you seemed like you were interested too, but you never made a move, so I thought I would.” He pauses. “Unless, I completely got all of this wrong, and I might have fucked up our friendship, especially since I’m leaving tomorrow-”

“No,” Tony says, hurriedly. “No, you didn’t fuck up anything. Absolutely not.” His throat flexes. “I do have feelings for you. Of course I have feelings for you, Rhodey. You’re like…” He huffs. “You have no fucking idea how important you are to me, honeybear.”


	2. ii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: i die with variety  
> Collaborator Name: Simi  
> Card Number: 4066  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27432925/chapters/67523498  
> Square Filled: K2 - I Regret Nothing  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Tony/Rhodey  
> Rating: Explicit  
> Major Tags: major character death, immortality in a way but it will end at some time, explicit sexual content.  
> Warnings for this Chapter: explicit sexual content, deaths in various, graphic circumstances, violence.  
> Summary: The first time that Tony dies, he is four and he’s building his very first circuit board from scratch. He’s connecting the finished product to the multimeter to check the voltage, the current and resistance, when a lead slips, a shock ricochets up through his spine, and he sees black.  
> He’s on his back, when his eyes flutter open, and he’s staring up at the ceiling. He gets up, frowning, rubbing at his eyes, and then, he sees the frayed wire on the end of the multimeter.  
> Huh, he thinks and moves on almost immediately.  
> Word Count: 4045
> 
> This was also written for the 'multiple orgasms' square (B2) for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

“Yeah?” Rhodey says, as if hardly daring hope.

Tony nods, vehemently. “You were… you were the first person to look at me and see _me_ , Rhodey. You saw… you didn’t see Howard Stark’s rich, hollow son. You didn’t see the little genius boy who made a circuit board at four. You didn’t see the playboy prince, heir to the empire shit. You just saw _me_.”

Rhodey huffs. “It’s hard not to see you when I walk in on you having sword fights with your robot and Styrofoam weapons, quoting Princess Bride, while Tamil music plays in the background.”

“You like Rajnikanth and you know it,” Tony accuses.

“I do. He’s pretty cool,” Rhodey agrees.

“Rhodey, I love you,” he blurts out before he loses nerve. “I don’t… I don’t want to pretend like it’s just feelings or that I want to see how it goes, not if you’re leaving tomorrow. I love you. I love you so much that sometimes, I can barely breathe with how much I love you.”

Rhodey stares at him, and with every moment that passes, panic claws at Tony’s throat and he wonders if he’s said too much, bared too much of his soul, peeled apart the skin and bones that make him up to show Rhodey something that he can’t deal with, because isn’t that Tony in a nutshell? _Too much_.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, softly, his voice barely above a murmur. “Fuck, of course I love you, I _love_ you. I’ve loved you this whole fucking time. I love you like sharks love blood. Fuck-”

He curls a hand around the nape of Tony’s neck and drags him forward, presses his mouth to Tony’s with bruising force, and Tony starts shaking, especially when Rhodey manages to get his arms around him.

Tony winds his arms around Rhodey’s shoulders, smoothing his hands down the lean planes of his back.

“Bed,” Tony pants.

“What?” Rhodey says, pulling back.

“I don’t want to waste any more time, Rhodey. No more,” Tony insists.

Rhodey shakes his head, a new fire entering his eyes. “Yeah, no more.”

Tony tangles his hand with Rhodey’s and leads him to the bed, perching on the edge.

“How do you want to do this?” he asks, curiously. “Top, bottom? Positions? Do we have stuff? I have condoms and lube in the drawer. I’ve, uh, I get myself tested every two months, and the last one came back clean. I also haven’t had unprotected sex since, well, Ty.”

Rhodey chuckles, his head tipping forward, his thumb still dragging back and forth over Tony’s knuckles. “Okay, uh, no preference between top and bottom? I don’t have preferences with positions, either, although I can’t deny that I like the image of you riding me or me riding you, depending on how we go with that first thing. It’s good to know that you’ve got stuff, because I have to admit that my mind was blanking on that one, after you said that you wanted to have sex with me, and uh, it’s good to know about being clean? I mean, I never thought that you’d have sex with me while knowing that you weren’t clean, because you’re not like that, but at the same time, I’m glad you said that without me having to ask the question, which I totally would have if the topic didn’t come back-”

Tony leans forward, kissing him, slanting his mouth so carefully over Rhodey’s. It’s gentle and soft and everything that Tony always thought his relationship with Rhodey was, but there’s an edge of firmness to it, like how stubborn and intransigent they are together, like nothing can ever touch them, can ever tear them apart.

“Fuck, you’re good at that,” Rhodey says, when they break apart.

Tony chuckles. “You’re not so bad either. You’ve been holding out on me, platypus,” he teases. “You want me to ride you? I do top, and I’d love to explore that, but I’d be lying if I haven’t imagined you fucking me.”

Rhodey groans, and he curls his hand around the nape of Tony’s neck, dragging him forward, their knees knocking together. Tony lifts his legs onto the bed, gets up on his knees, so that Rhodey can do the same, and now, they’re both kneeling in the centre of Tony’s ginormous mattress, their chests pressed together. Tony’s hands grip Rhodey’s shoulders, and he uses that hold to be able to push him down onto the mattress and straddle him, his knees on either side of Tony’s hips, bowing over him.

He settles firmly in Rhodey’s lap, feels the hard length of his cock pressing up against where groin meets thigh.

“Is this what you were thinking about?” Tony asks, his voice breathless, like there’s something hot and scraping like a knife down his throat. “Is it like this, or should I do something else?”

“No, no,” Rhodey’s voice sounds rough, dragging out, “this is it; this is perfect.”

Rhodey lifts himself somewhat up, balancing himself on his elbows, just high enough to catch his mouth again, and Tony sighs, as if this is what makes him complete. He lets Rhodey take control of the kiss, lets him define it the way that he wants, and Tony’s just happy to go along, because he trusts Rhodey, trusts him like he’s only ever trusted Jarvis and his mother.

Tony pulls away when his lungs start to burn. He takes his shirt off first, revealing the score of black tally marks dappled over his dark brown skin. He pauses, after realising what he’s done.

“Is this okay?” he asks, carefully.

Rhodey looks over his bare chest, the lean muscles fixed to his arms and abdomen, eyes lingering on the marks. “You do remember that I already know about these, right?” he asks, thumbing one particular defined streak under his nipple.

Tony makes a soft noise of discontent at the back of his throat. “It’s one thing to know about them, and it’s another to actually have sex with me while staring at them.”

Rhodey laughs. “Tony, I don’t have a problem with them. They’re like tattoos to me.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony blusters, “just checking.”

Rhodey curls a hand around the back of his neck, and Tony leans into it (there’s something comforting, something defining about the way that Rhodey holds him, strong and certain like he has Tony’s back in everything, but there’s a vulnerable tinge to it as well, and Tony knows that Rhodey isn’t close to anyone the way that he’s close to Tony and that exposes him, so he needs to know that Tony has his back as well – Tony would _always_ have Rhodey’s back, in anything and everything; he thinks he would kill and die for Rhodey, would burn the world to the ground for him).

“Everything’s good, yeah?” Rhodey checks in, his voice soft. “It’s just us here, just Rhodey and Tony, no one else.”

“Honeybear and the Gremlin,” Tony says, his lower lip trembling.

“World’s Finest, Earth’s Mightiest,” Rhodey replies, easily.

Tony starts unbuttoning Rhodey’s shirt with a practiced, graceful ease, eyes focused on the sliver of dark skin that is exposed to him with each button that loosens. He slips the shirt off Rhodey’s shoulders when he’s done. He shifts closer to Rhodey, nudging his nose against where Rhodey’s pulse throbs rabbit-quick, where he smells of soap and the slight scent of cologne that he uses. His hand rests on the other side of Rhodey’s neck, keeping him upright, while he puts his mouth there and runs his tongue over the hollow of his throat, the beat of his carotid artery, the line of his lean shoulder.

Rhodey’s hands are diverse in their attentions. One of them is groping Tony’s ass over his jeans, while the other is palming Tony’s thigh, fingernails biting into the denim, which he quickly strips off. Tony drags his mouth across the slope of his shoulder, biting at the curve of his neck, while his free hand curls into the jut of muscle at Rhodey’s shoulders. He moves away and kisses Rhodey again, his mouth hot and insistent against Tony’s. Tony’s hands find their way to the button on Rhodey’s jeans.

“Is this okay?” he murmurs against Rhodey’s mouth.

“Yeah, of course,” Rhodey replies.

Tony unbuttons his jeans, sliding the zipper down, carefully. He reaches inside, fingers brushing against the waistband of Rhodey’s underwear and his knuckles nudging against Rhodey’s half-hard cock. He works his hand inside Rhodey’s briefs, curling around the base and stroking upwards, stroking him to full-mast. His palm grows wet with the pre-come that beads at Rhodey’s head, and Rhodey’s breath hitches, his face going slack with pleasure.

 _He’s the reason why faces were invented_ , Tony realises, watching him with widened, obscene awe, especially as Rhodey’s eyes grow hooded.

“Is that good?” he asks, lacking his usual bravado, his usual confidence when he’s in bed with someone.

Rhodey grunts and shifts, his cock jerking in Tony’s hand. “Yeah, it’s, uh,” he runs his tongue over his lower lip, “it’s really fucking good.”

Tony catches that lip between his teeth, sets his teeth on the line of his mouth, as the motions with his hand become firmer, more deliberate. He swaps hands, while the other reaches for the drawer in the bedside table, pulling it open and fishing it open for a squeeze bottle of lube that he keeps there for his private time. He pulls it out with a sound of triumph, which has a smile cracking across the lower half of Rhodey’s face as Tony waves it back and forth to make his eyes cross, teasingly.

He squeezes it onto his fingers, a healthy dollop, and rubs it between his fingers.

He reaches between his legs, lifting himself off Rhodey’s lap onto his knees, to find his rim. He’s tight, and he grunts against the breach of his long fingers, sucking in a sharp breath. He slides his fingers inside to his knuckle, his eyes fluttering shut, and he lets out a small, soft noise when Rhodey curls a hand around the back of his neck, pulls him forward until their foreheads are touching.

Rhodey’s hand falls onto his cock, and Tony’s throat flexes, as his hand starts to move, starts to corkscrew upwards, while Tony stretches himself open to take Rhodey’s cock. One finger becomes two, and then, two becomes three, and he manages to brush against his prostate on one lucky thrust, making his muscles seize up, every nerve ending alight with sensation. He groans at the pleasure rolling through his body, the combination of the pressure inside his body and Rhodey’s warm palm rubbing his cock.

“Fuck, fuck,” he says, breathlessly, and he withdraws his fingers with a shudder. “If I keep going, I’m going to come and that’s going to ruin this monumental night.”

Rhodey huffs, tilting his head back so that it knocks against the headboard. “You know, it’s entirely likely that the actual sex of it all is going to suck,” he says, casually.

Tony gasps. “That is blasphemy, honeybear,” he says, solemnly. “There is absolutely no fucking way that sex with the two of us could suck.”

Rhodey chuckles.

“Have you seen us? We are easily the hottest guys to walk the planet,” Tony tells him, matter-of-factly.

“Did you forget Denzel Washington?” Rhodey reminds him.

“I absolutely did not forget Denzel Washington, but have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently?” Tony shoots back.

Rhodey pauses. “Okay, not gonna shoot down a compliment. The sex will be great,” he reassures.

Tony leans back smugly. “So, now, what are you gonna do?”

Rhodey’s hand falls down to Tony’s sharp hip bone, gripping it tight, thumb running over one of the black streaks painting his skin. Rhodey pushes Tony back onto his knees, so that he’s hovering above Rhodey’s lap, so that Rhodey can get a hand around his own cock, keep it steady for him, as Tony bears down with a gasp. There’s a strong ache, a pressure that fills him from ass to throat, and it takes more than a moment for him to settle fully in Rhodey’s lap. Tony splays his hands on Rhodey’s shoulders for purchase, resisting the urge to shake, and lets his eyes flutter shut.

“Woah,” he says, letting his tongue slip out between the seam of his lips.

“Good?” Rhodey says, his jaw taut.

“Absolutely,” Tony says, his nails digging into the jut of shoulder muscle in Rhodey’s back. “Okay, okay, can I move?”

Rhodey eases a warm hand up Tony’s side. “I’m pretty sure that only you can make that call, babe,” he says, smoothly. “Are you in pain?”

Tony shakes his head.

“How do you feel?”

“Uh.” Tony thinks about it. “Full, like there’s a lot of pressure, you know? I was expecting that, though. I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve taken it up the ass.”

Rhodey chokes out a laugh. “Jesus, Tony.”

“What? It isn’t.” Tony peers at him. “Is this the first time that you’ve been inside a guy? Because I know you’re not a virgin. I’ve heard you with girls before, and they always come out looking like you know your shit, so I’m not worried about that, but is this the first time that you’ve fucked a guy, because I feel like I should know that.”

Rhodey pinches the bridge of his nose. “And what if it is? Would that make you stop?”

Tony squirms a little, and Rhodey groans, his hands tightening on Tony’s hips. “Absolutely not. I am having way too much fun with this,” he says, breathlessly. “So? Is that a yes on the virgin front?”

Rhodey scowls. “I am _not_ a virgin,” he says, firmly.

“But how’s your first time fucking a guy in the ass?” Tony pushes.

“Do you have to be so crude about it?” Rhodey complains.

Tony lets his voice soften, turn vaguely flirtatious, instead of the bright, blunt flint that it usually is. “I could say that we’re making love; would that make you feel better?”

Rhodey winds one of his hands into Tony’s hair, tugging at the strands, his knuckles tight against Tony’s scalp. It makes goosebumps rush across his skin pleasantly, each little nerve ending an oasis of pleasure in its own right.

“Aren’t we doing that?” Rhodey’s voice is gentle, practically a murmur. “Aren’t we making love, Tony? Isn’t this about love with us, Tony?”

Tony’s throat works, as a lump forms at the pit there, just above his collarbone. “It’s about love,” he confirms, his voice a promise in its own right. “I love you, Rhodey.”

Rhodey grins, a slash of white teeth, and he kisses him, slow and lingering, and Tony starts to rock his hips. He doesn’t rise and fall, as he should, as this particular sex position requires. He lets his hips do the work. His cock rubs up against Rhodey’s flat, muscled stomach, the ridges of his abdomen, an instinctive bid for friction, and he’s moving back and forth, shifting restlessly, and then, _and then_ , he starts to rise. He digs his nails into Rhodey’s shoulders and rises, rises until practically all of Rhodey’s cock, slick with lube, is bared to his gaze, before he falls, and Rhodey grunts, as he’s gripped in the slick, vice grip of Tony’s ass.

Tony lets his head fall onto Rhodey’s shoulder, mouths at his throat, where he can taste sweat, feel his pulse throbbing fast and wild, and he starts angling his hips down, taking Rhodey inside him over and over again, until his mind isn’t able to focus on anything, isn’t able to know or feel anything but the pressure in his chest, between his legs, his hard cock bobbing, rubbing up against Rhodey’s stomach.

Each thrust rips another pulse of pleasure from his body, and it’s furious and clumsy and familiar, as if they were always meant to do this, meant to be this to each other, meant to do this with each other.

Rhodey thrusts into him with no finesse, with unbridled enthusiasm, and the throbbing changes, becomes more comforting, like he knows exactly how this is going to end. He’s rising and falling, clenching deep around Rhodey’s cock, moving atop him with sinuous grace, even if they’re anything but graceful.

Rhodey wraps a hand around his cock, and he catches Tony’s mouth with his, as he starts palming his cock with sure strokes, and Tony’s moaning now, in soft, low sounds, clutching at Rhodey as tight as he possibly can, and then, he comes in soft spurts all over Rhodey’s hand.

He pants against Rhodey’s throat, and his hips slow down to a lazy grind. He doesn’t know what prompts it, if it’s because of something that he does personally, but soon, Rhodey is groaning, deep and low, with a shudder that rocks his entire body and reverberates into Tony’s body, and he feels a warm wash of heat inside him in response.

“Fuck,” Tony declares, breathlessly, and then, with a slick, damp sound, he’s lifting himself off of Rhodey and landing on the mattress beside him, his arm slung over his face.

“Fuck,” Rhodey echoes, breathing just as hard.

He shuffles down the mattress so that they are at the same height, and Rhodey shifts onto his side, so that he can look Tony in the eye, brush strands of sweat-damp hair out of his eyes.

“Hey,” he says, softly.

“Hey,” Tony replies. His throat flexes. “You really have to go tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I do,” Rhodey says, rubbing his thumb over Tony’s cheek, in slow, methodical circles, not hard enough to press down on the bone.

“I don’t want you to go, and I’m selfish enough to admit that,” Tony says, honestly.

“I don’t want to leave you either, but-” Rhodey hesitates.

“But you’re a good guy; you’re a _decent_ guy, which means you want to help people, want to help your country, and I have to be okay with that. I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t suck, but… I love you, and part of the reason why I love you is because you’re a decent guy.” Tony smiles, showing a hint of teeth, as he sidles closer, brushes his mouth against Rhodey’s. “I hate it, and I love it. It’s dumb.”

“I hate it and I love it too.”

Tony lifts an eyebrow.

Rhodey’s mouth stretches into a grin. “Hey, I’m in love with a guy that dies and comes back to life. You think I don’t know what that feels like? You think I don’t walk around with my lungs in my throat, thinking about when I’m gonna get the call that you’re dead and cold, and you’re not waking up this time?”

Tony sits up slightly. “Rhodey-”

“I’m not trying to say that to make you feel guilty. I just need you to know that I get it.”

Tony’s expression falters. “Don’t die, Rhodey, not out there, not where I can’t get to you.”

“I’m not making any promises, baby, ‘cause I’ll never be sure,” Rhodey murmurs, “but don’t you die either, not where I’m not going to be there, okay? Even if you’re just saying the words.”

“I’m not dying without you there,” Tony says, without hesitation, and prays that it won’t one day become a lie, because that would be shitty, wouldn’t it?

Tony isn’t a stranger to lying. He’s made a career of it ever since he was old enough to form words together on his tongue and he realised that lying was a good, easy way of protecting himself from all the bad people who wanted to hurt him.

He does it as a necessary evil.

But if he ends up lying to Rhodey, and he dies when Rhodey isn’t there with him, well, that’s just going to make his inevitable death even worse, isn’t it?

Rhodey is the one person that Tony doesn’t want to lie to.

“I know you can’t promise that but thank you for saying it.” Rhodey drags him in so that they can tangle their legs together, and Tony feels blissfully warm, especially when Rhodey reaches for the covers, bringing the quilt over the two of them. “It’s you and me, yeah?” he says, his hand falling onto Tony’s hip, knuckles dragging back and forth.

“Yeah, Rhodey,” Tony says and fully believes that his heart is shining in his eyes, so obvious to anyone who looks at him right now, “it’s you and me.”

* * *

In 2000, he has forty-seven marks.

Most of the time, it’s because he’s extraordinarily reckless with himself in the workshop, and after the first time that JARVIS’ sensors alert him to some not-very-good vitals, he gets used to it and knows not to worry the same way he might if this strange, mythical thing didn’t happen to Tony.

Though, sometimes, it’s because Tony also has an unfortunate ability to piss people off, and they try and kill him.

Sometimes, they succeed, you know, if there’s a cleverly planted assassin, or a lucky racist in the crowd with a gun full of bullets that catch him in the chest.

Those times, Rhodey is terrified, even if he knows, logically, that this has happened before and Tony has always gotten up at the end of it, but it doesn’t dull the terror that Rhodey feels, watching on TV most of the time, half a world away, or sometimes right by his side, as Tony crumples to the ground, and there’s a red, blossoming stain over his shirt front.

And then, Tony wakes up in a hospital bed, having flatlined at least six times on the table, which means six new marks, and Rhodey’s curled at his bedside, his face drawn, misery pulling the skin tight around his bones.

“Hi,” he says, his voice rasping like it is chain dragging on stone.

“Hi, asshole,” Rhodey says, wheezing out the words.

He rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes, and they come back damp.

“Are you crying for me, honeybear?”

“Yeah, because you died _six_ times!”

Tony’s face softens. “You know that doesn’t stick.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Rhodey says, woodenly. “We’ve never… that timer could run out one day, Tony. There might be a… finite amount of times you’re allowed to do this, and we’ll never know if that’s coming, and if it does, if it does come, and you die, and you don’t get up, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

“You’ll be okay,” Tony says, confidently.

Rhodey shakes his head. “You don’t know that.”

“I do know that,” Tony tells him. “You know how I know that? Because between the two of us, I’m the mess, Rhodey. I’m the one who’s going to do something stupid and reckless and potentially fatal if something happened to you. I don’t…” Tony’s throat works, and he shifts, wincing, his entire body one, big bruise. “I don’t have a lot of people left in this world. Jarvis and Ana are gone now, and my parents are too. I have my Aunt Peggy, and I have Sharon, and I have Pepper and Happy, and I have you. And I love you the most; I love you the best. If something happened to you, I would be… untethered. I would be untethered, and if I’m untethered, I don’t know what I’d do to myself, because I honestly don’t know if I could survive in a world without you. It’s because I’m weak, you see? My father used to say that Starks are made of iron. I’m not, Rhodey. I’m not made of iron.” He pauses, his brow furrowing. “I think, I think I shouldn’t have said that. I feel like I just… emotionally blackmailed you or something. You know, when you have those teenagers who threaten to commit suicide if their boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with them, did I just become one of them? Because Ty used to do that to me, and I hated it, and I don’t ever want to be that for you, honeybear-”

Rhodey covers Tony’s mouth with the warm palm of his hand. “Stop talking,” he says, sternly.

“Okay,” Tony says, his voice muffled by Rhodey’s hand.


	3. iii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "bruises" square (B4) of the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.
> 
> Written also for the Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV:
> 
> Title: i die with variety  
> Collaborator Name: Simi  
> Card Number: 4066  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27432925/chapters/67968286  
> Square Filled: S2 - More than a Partner  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Tony/Rhodey  
> Rating: Explicit  
> Major Tags: major character death, immortality in a way but it will end at some time, explicit sexual content.  
> Warnings for this Chapter: torture, body image issues, deaths in various, graphic circumstances, violence.  
> Summary: The first time that Tony dies, he is four and he’s building his very first circuit board from scratch. He’s connecting the finished product to the multimeter to check the voltage, the current and resistance, when a lead slips, a shock ricochets up through his spine, and he sees black.  
> He’s on his back, when his eyes flutter open, and he’s staring up at the ceiling. He gets up, frowning, rubbing at his eyes, and then, he sees the frayed wire on the end of the multimeter.  
> Huh, he thinks and moves on almost immediately.  
> Word Count: 4091

“Tony, okay, first of all, I resent the idea that you are the mess between the two of us. Tony, I’m not some fucking robot who knows how to compartmentalise my feelings and only deal in logic, okay? I’m not that guy. You _know_ that I’m not that guy. So, yeah, when I say that it fucking freaks me out that you could die and not wake up again, because you’re so confident _that_ day won’t happen, I really fucking mean that. I need you to know that it would destroy me if something happened to you.”

“Really?” Tony asks, in a small voice when Rhodey pulls his hand away.

“Yeah, Tony. I might not burn the world to the ground, but don’t you fucking dare think that it would just be easy for me to move on, because it wouldn’t,” Rhodey says, firmly. “It wouldn’t. Fuck, Tony, I’ve known you for half my life. I don’t have other friends, Tony. I have you, and I have Pepper, and I have my mom and Lila. That’s it. That’s all the people I love in the world that are still alive. I love _you_ , and yeah, it would fucking devastate me, Tony, if something happened to you, if you died and you didn’t get up again. It would devastate me. It would change my life completely, and I don’t know how much I could continue to go on, if I would ever be the same again. Would I die? Probably not, but don’t you dare say that you are in some way a deeper mess than me, because if something happened to you, it would be like half of me died with you.”

Tony’s eyes burn like they’re full of acid.

“Second of all, don’t you fucking dare say that you’re weak, because you’re not. You’re _not_. Fuck Howard. That guy was an abusive jackass who couldn’t deal with the fact that you were better than him, always better than him, and he put you down to make himself feel better about his own mediocrity. You _are_ made of iron, Tony; you’re just not made of stone. You’re not cold. You’re like fucking fire. You make me burn every time that you look at me, you touch me, you smile at me. It’s like I’m on fucking fire _with_ you.”

A lump forms at the base of Tony’s throat, solid and aching, throbbing, hurting.

“You weren’t emotionally blackmailing me, by the way.” Rhodey’s hand has a vice grip on his. “I know exactly what you’re doing, what you’re saying, and I’ve known for years that you have a shitty view about yourself, and I have tried, for so long, to get you to see yourself the way that I see you, and I know that it’s harder for you. I know that you haven’t been loved well, by your parents and fucking Stone, but I am _here_. I love you, and I think the world of you, and I know exactly what you meant when you said that. Do you know why I know that you’re not one of those teenagers who threaten to commit suicide if their boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with them?”

Tony shakes his head. “No.”

“Because if I wanted to go, because if I wanted to leave you, for whatever reason, you would let me go, Tony,” Rhodey says, honestly. “You would think that it was just a matter of time; you would convince yourself that, of course, I left, because everyone leaves. You would convince yourself that _you’d_ done something wrong, _you’d_ made me leave you, and it would have confirmed everything that you think about yourself, because you think it’s always your fault.”

Tony flinches.

“My point isn’t to hurt you, baby,” Rhodey says, tangling their hands together, lifting them up to press his mouth against Tony’s dry knuckles. “I just mean that I know you’d never beg me to stay, because you don’t think that you’re worthy of someone staying. I’m saying that you’re _wrong_. I’m saying that you _are_ worthy of someone staying. I’m saying that _I’m_ staying, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. That’s not what my problem is. It’s not that I’m getting tired of you, or bored with you. It’s that I’m fucking worried about you.”

“Rhodey,” Tony croaks out.

“I get fucking scared that every time that something terrible happens to you, you die, and you might not wake up the next time, and I think of what life is going to be like without you, and it’s just… it’s just _bleak_ ,” Rhodey brandishes his arm outwards into empty space, “it’s just fucking bleak, Tony, and I don’t want that. I don’t want that life. I want _you_ , and I want you in my life. That’s it. So, I need you to do better. I need you to be safer. I need you to protect yourself, to keep yourself safe, to stop _dying_ , because I love you, because I want to have a life with you. I want to love you until we’re old and grey and shouting at kids to get off our grass.”

Tony takes on a teasing smile. “Are we really going to do that?”

“You bet your ass,” Rhodey says, confidently. “But only if you stop dying, or at least, try to keep yourself alive, for _my_ sake, but for yours as well.”

It’s a sweet image, the one where they have a porch, and Tony’s hair is white, and his skin wrinkled, and he is no longer beautiful, but Rhodey is with him, as Rhodey is always with him, and they sit on side-by-side rocking chairs, and they shout at the younger generation because they’re so stupid, and Tony wants that, wants that with a fierce hunger that cramps his belly, because Tony has never had that.

He’s had Jarvis and Ana, and he’s had his mother when the wine wasn’t dulling her senses or making her mean and resentful, just like his father, but they’re all dead now.

All he has is Rhodey.

Rhodey has always loved him best.

“Okay,” he says, softly, “but only if you promise me the same.”

“Tony,” Rhodey sighs and shifts in his chair.

“Hey,” Tony says, an undercurrent of steel to his voice. “You’re out there too, and it hurts me, because I always think something terrible is going to happen to you, that I’m gonna get a call from your mother, and she’s going to tell me that you’re dead, and if it hurts you to think that one day, I might not wake up, it hurts me to think that I might get that call. So, if I’m going to keep myself safe, keep myself _alive_ , I need you to do the same, so that we make that porch thing more than just a dream.”

Rhodey considers him for a moment, and then, Rhodey lifts their joined hands to his mouth, bowing over their knuckles.

* * *

Tony does try his best to do as Rhodey wants.

Sometimes, it doesn’t work.

Despite his best efforts, by the time he’s flying to Afghanistan, he has sixty-eight marks, twenty-one in nine years.

The skin around Rhodey’s eyes tighten every time that they’re together and Rhodey strips him naked and traces his tongue and his fingers over each black mark that smears across his skin, a tally mark that has no end, at least for now.

But Tony can’t help it, and Rhodey knows that he tries his best.

Tony still hates how much it hurts Rhodey.

In 2009, Tony flies to Afghanistan.

Rhodey is there, of course, as the liaison for Stark Industries, and it’s strange, because Tony and Rhodey have been in each other’s pockets since Tony was fourteen and Rhodey was seventeen, and they call each other cute nicknames like _honeybear_ and _sugar baby_ , and yet somehow, people still think that they’re just friends.

Rhodey says that’s because of racism.

Tony’s not going to deny it.

Of course, everything goes to hell on their way back from the demonstration to the base, and their convoy blows up.

Tony is stumbling out of the car, after watching the brains of the soldier who’d asked him for a picture stain the window of their jeep, and his head is flying, his eyes stinging with sand, finding Rhodey on top of the other jeep, his hands on the machine gun mounted on top of the Humvee.

“Rhodey!” he shouts.

Rhodey turns in the direction of the scream of his name, and his eyes widen, the skin pulls tight across his face.

“Tony, hide!”

Tony’s stumbling away, even as every single one of his instincts scream in response, but he backs away as Rhodey orders him to (he knows what he’s good at, what he’s capable of, and he knows what Rhodey’s good at and is capable of, and if Rhodey tells him to hide, he’ll hide, because there’s no one in this world that he trusts like he trusts Rhodey).

The sounds are horrible when he dives behind a large, jagged rock, the gravel underneath him cutting into his suit pants and thoroughly shredding his knees, and the thing that he hates the most is the fact that from his vantage point, he can’t see Rhodey, which means he’ll never know if something happens to him, if he gets hurt or God forbid, if he dies.

 _No_ , Tony reminds himself. _No, I’d know. I’d know it in my gut, in my bones, if something happened to him. If he were hurt, I’d know. If he were dead, I’d know. I’d know. There isn’t a me without him._

Suddenly, a mortar shell lands in front of him, lands with a sound that Tony will probably remember until that moment where he closes his eyes and never opens them again.

It says _Stark Industries_ across the shell in familiar font, and Tony is scrambling back, scrambling away, the panic clawing at his throat, and then, it explodes, because everything that Tony makes explodes, and fuck, this is what his mother was getting at with _karma_.

_For all the lifetimes that you’ve had, you reap what you sow._

Tony is reaping what he sowed.

He lands on the gravel with a dull, painful thump, with his ears ringing, his eyes burning like they’re full of acid, and for a brief, terrible moment, he thinks that’s the end of it, that’s the worst of it, and then, he feels it, feels the starburst of a wound pulling at his chest.

He looks down, pulls the suit jacket free of its buttons, and sees his shirt staining red, red with _blood_ , which is spreading, spreading so much that he can feel it congealing in a thick, damp mess on his chest, and _there’s_ the pain.

He lets out a shuddery breath, and he opens his mouth to call out for Rhodey, but he sees black when the pain spreads up into his head, making it pound.

He’s not looking forward to when he opens his eyes again.

* * *

They want Tony to build a Jericho missile, the same one that he had demonstrated in front of the army.

Tony refuses.

They drown him in a trough filled with murky, stale water.

He dies at least half a dozen times, before he’s being thrown into the chamber with his companion, waterlogged and panting, where each breath tastes like he’s downed gasoline and lit himself on fire.

The man who saved him peers down at him.

“They don’t like you.”

Tony chokes and lifts himself up so that he can rest his weight on his elbows. “Well, I didn’t think that they’d drown people who they like, or kidnap them, or, you know, perform invasive cardiothoracic surgery without anaesthesia on them.”

“No, it’s more than that.” His companion hesitates for an agonising moment. “You are… odd.”

Tony lifts an eyebrow. “And here I thought we were getting along so well,” he says, dryly.

“I needed help during the surgery, when I was getting the shrapnel out of your chest,” the man says, without missing a beat. “They helped me. And when we stripped you-”

Tony sighs, already knowing where this is going. “You saw the marks.”

The man nods. “They think you are… they think you are an abomination. At first, they thought it was some sort of tattoo, and then, while you were on the table and I was operating, more and more marks started to appear.”

“It’s because I died,” Tony says, bluntly, seeing no reason to maintain a presence.

The man tilts his head in curiosity.

Tony sighs and stretches his hand out. The man helps him to his feet, leads him over to the cot.

“Ever since I was a little kid, I would… I would die. It would be little things. The first… first absolute memory I have of it is when I built the circuit board, you know, the circuit board that got me in all the magazines?”

The man nods.

“I electrocuted myself, and then, I woke up on the floor. I thought everything was fine. I wasn’t hurt or anything, and the next time I had a shower, I saw the mark on my hip. The next time, I drowned, and then, I shot myself in the face when I was making my first gun. I was seven-”

“You were seven when you shot yourself in the face with a gun you made,” the man says, aghast.

Tony pauses. “You know, when you say it like that, I would probably make a good advertisement for the anti-gun lobby, _but_ the gun did work. My finger just slipped.” He waves his hand in the air dismissively. “Anyway, it keeps happening every time I die. If you saw it happen on the table, when you were operating on me, I must have died.”

“And there is no end. You just keep coming back.”

“For now, there is no end,” Tony says, vaguely.

The man considers him. “You might either be the luckiest or unluckiest man I have ever met.”

“You’re pretty safe in assuming it’s right in the middle of that spectrum,” Tony replies.

“You are very stubborn,” he tells Tony, half-disapprovingly and half-in-awe.

“I am,” Tony agrees.

“You should do what they ask of you,” he tells Tony.

“I can’t,” Tony whispers.

“Why not?”

“You know, my father is from Iran.”

The man shifts, his eyes widening with surprise.

“Oh, yeah,” Tony says, tipping his head back so that it presses up against the wall. “He and his parents came to the States in the 1920s. This was before the Imperial State, and things were kind of hard for Jewish people in Iran. I am, of course, understating what it was like for them. My grandparents fled that for the US. My father became this big-shot inventor, helped America fight the Nazis and felt some kinship for the Jewish people that were suffering at the hands of Hitler, and he just stayed with the weapons gig, after the war ended. And then, they died. And I kept with it, kept making weapons for America, and I thought… I thought I was doing good. I thought I was keeping our soldiers safe, and then, they invaded the Middle East, and I convinced myself that it wasn’t my fault, that I couldn’t be blamed for what they were doing to my countrymen. I was wrong.”

The man considers him for a moment. “You were wrong,” he says, heavily, firmly, as if he had already known this, as if he had saved Tony despite thinking of him as the scum of the earth.

That is a separate blow that Tony stomachs.

“They shouldn’t have my weapons.”

“They shouldn’t have your weapons.”

“They shouldn’t have used the things I made to hurt people that look like me, hurt anyone.”

“They shouldn’t have used the things you made to hurt anyone.”

The man stares at him in a way that makes Tony feel as though he is being pulled apart so that he can see Tony’s insides, whatever makes Tony _Tony_.

“What are you going to do with that, Tony Stark?”

* * *

“So, who are these people?” Tony asks, curiously, lingering over the inside framework of one of his missiles.

“ _They_ are your loyal customers, dear boy. They call themselves the Ten Rings.”

“And what do I call you?” Tony asks, wondering why it had never occurred to him to ask before.

“My name is Yinsen.”

“Yinsen,” Tony repeats. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Tony, but you already knew that.”

Yinsen looks at him with a smile. “Nice to meet you too,” he murmurs, his eyes twinkling.

* * *

Yinsen dies.

It’s Tony’s fault, like everything else is.

Tony sets fire to the Ten Rings’ camp, and he takes off into the air, the armour growing cold like ice as he breaches through layers of the atmosphere.

And then, the armour gives out as soon as it ever works, and then, Tony is falling, falling and falling and he crashes into the desert with a terrible sound.

The armour is in pieces around him, and Tony is certain that more than one bone is broken, and he’s bleeding and sunburnt all over, but somehow, he manages to climb out of the wreckage.

His arm is the worst.

He’s definitely sure that bone is broken.

He takes a deep, pained breath and sets out on his journey through the desert.

He’s wandering for what seems like years when he hears the rumble of the helicopter above him. He crosses one last dune, and then, he sees it, sees the blades whirring through the sky, and he’s screaming, screaming for them, waving his uninjured arm in the air, desperately.

His feet give out from underneath him, and he lands on his knees in the sand, just as the helicopter sets down some way away from him, and soldiers climb out, racing towards him.

The soldier at the front removes their headgear, revealing Rhodey’s drawn face, and Tony is moments away from crying. Rhodey slows when they’re a few feet away from each other.

“How was the funvee?” he calls out, just to be a dick.

Tony covers his face with his hand, and something that is a strange blend of a sob and a laugh escapes him.

 _I thought you were dead_ , he thinks, even if he hadn’t allowed himself to give validity to that thought much during his captivity. _I thought you were dead, and I thought I couldn’t die, and I thought I’d have to spend the rest of eternity, just living, without you._

Rhodey crouches in front of him, curls a warm, broad palm around the nape of his neck, pressing his forehead against Tony’s.

“Next time, you ride with me, okay?” Rhodey brushes his mouth against Tony’s, and all the other airmen behind them turn their heads for the sake of plausible deniability.

Tony nods, and the words that he wants to say (it was definitely going to be something along the lines of _I love you, I love you, I love you_ ) get lost somewhere between his mind and his tongue, and instead, all that comes out is a sob.

Rhodey curses under his breath and, using the hand that he has braced on Tony’s neck, he pulls him, pulls him in so that Tony can tuck his head against the hollow of Rhodey’s throat, over the thick wad of fabric that is meant to protect his neck from any violence.

Rhodey smells like sweat, like heat, like gunpowder, and he smells _real_ , which is the only thing that is keeping Tony from falling apart like a child in the desert in the middle of Afghanistan in front of Rhodey, whom he loves more than anything or anyone else in the world, and these airmen that Tony doesn’t know at all.

“Next time you ride with me,” Rhodey murmurs against Tony’s temple.

* * *

“Hot-rod red, seriously?” is Rhodey’s first comment when he sees Tony in the armour.

Tony lifts the helmet off his head, and his hair sticks close to his skin, damp with sweat.

“Don’t knock the red; you know you like it,” Tony replies, primly.

“So, where’s mine?” Rhodey demands.

“I said I’d make one for you; you’re the one who can’t seem to decide on what the colour should be.”

Rhodey groans. “I know, I know. I just can’t decide between the silver and the black.”

“I think both colours would make you look sexy.”

“Yeah, because _that’s_ the effect that I’m going for when I said I wanted the suit, the chance to be sexy in metal. _That’s_ what’s going to make supervillains run around in fear.”

“The armour would make your ass look great,” Tony goes on to say.

“I’m more interested in how the armour makes _your_ ass look,” Rhodey says, his voice soft, vaguely flirtatious.

Tony gives a little spin in the armour, even if it sounds abysmally clunky. “Well? Judgments?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you let me strip you out of that thing and see what your ass looks like in real life before I make any judgments,” Rhodey retorts.

At once, the mood flattens, and Tony falters, his hands falling limply to his side.

Rhodey straightens. “What? What did I say?”

“Nothing, you didn’t say anything,” Tony says, briskly. “I just… I guess, I guess we haven’t had sex since before I went to Afghanistan.”

Rhodey’s expression turns grim. “I wasn’t going to say anything-”

“No, you should have. I know that I’ve been… I’ve been putting you off after I came back from Afghanistan,” Tony begins. “It’s not, I know that you’ve been thinking that something terrible happened in Afghanistan with the Ten Rings, like something more than just your ordinary torture. You’ve been thinking that I was raped or something. I wasn’t.”

“Tony,” Rhodey says, quietly.

“It’s okay. I wasn’t raped. I was tortured. The reason,” he hesitates, “the reason why I’ve been avoiding the sex question is because… I’m not; you’ve never had an issue with the marks that I have on my body. I have a lot more because of my capture. I… I died in that cave a lot of times, when Yinsen saved my life the first time from the shrapnel and then, when he put the arc reactor in, and then, there were all the times that they drowned me, and they beat me with their fists and knives,” he falls silent. “There are a lot more marks now.”

Rhodey approaches him carefully, putting his hands on Tony’s shoulder. “It’s like you said, though. I don’t have a problem with the marks, Tony. I don’t care if you have hundreds of them. They don’t matter to me.”

“It’s not the marks,” Tony says, chewing on his lip. “It’s… the arc reactor. It’s ugly.”

Rhodey’s eyebrows fly up to his hairline. “That’s what you’re worried about? You’re thinking the arc reactor makes you ugly?”

“You haven’t seen it, not in my body. It’s not…” Tony sighs. “It’s not just something bright and shy. It’s not like a tattoo or anything. It’s not like a sticker. It’s something that goes into my body, not just an inch or two, but half of my chest cavity is taken up by this reactor. It stunts my heart and my lungs. I can’t breathe if I’m on my stomach, and on my back, it’s like there’s an anvil pressing down into my chest. It’s a whole hunk of metal and electromagnetic radiation in my chest. It means that I’ll catch every single illness that comes around. Every virus, every infection, all of it, I’ll catch it. This shit will kill me more than the alcohol poisoning and defective liver might have. I’m more at risk for any cardiothoracic complication-”

“I don’t care about that-”

“It _looks_ ugly,” Tony stresses, the back of his neck heating up. “It looks really fucking bad, Rhodey. There are, there are a lot of bruises, scars. It looks like-”

“I don’t care,” Rhodey says, confidently, leaning back with the sort of assurance that Tony had always found uber sexy.

“You don’t know that you don’t care,” Tony’s voice is stern, “because you don’t know what you don’t care about.”

“You’re _literally_ telling me what it is, but okay?”

“That’s not-” Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, maybe, you need a visual aid.”


	4. iv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "workshop sex" square (I4) for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.
> 
> Written also for the "Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger" square (A4) for the Tony Stark Bingo IV.
> 
> Title: i die with variety  
> Collaborator Name: Simi  
> Card Number: 4066  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27432925/chapters/68326222  
> Square Filled: A4 - Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Tony/Rhodey  
> Rating: Explicit  
> Major Tags: major character death, immortality in a way but it will end at some time, explicit sexual content, deaths in various, graphic circumstances, violence, alcohol poisoning, terminal illness.  
> Summary: The first time that Tony dies, he is four and he’s building his very first circuit board from scratch. He’s connecting the finished product to the multimeter to check the voltage, the current and resistance, when a lead slips, a shock ricochets up through his spine, and he sees black.  
> He’s on his back, when his eyes flutter open, and he’s staring up at the ceiling. He gets up, frowning, rubbing at his eyes, and then, he sees the frayed wire on the end of the multimeter.  
> Huh, he thinks and moves on almost immediately.  
> Word Count: 4026

Tony starts removing the armour, piece by piece, pulling each of the latches in quick succession, and Rhodey tries to stop him, but Tony shrugs him off instead. He’s quickly left in his undersuit, when all of the armour clangs to the ground, something that clings to him like a second skin, showing the broadness of his shoulders, the flatness of his belly and his ribs (he lost a lot of weight in Afghanistan, and he doubts he’ll be able to get it back), his legs.

Then, he’s taking the undersuit off, pulling the zippers down one by one, and then, he’s standing naked in front of Rhodey.

He doesn’t hide, doesn’t cower, doesn’t put his hands in front of his body, doesn’t hide the arc reactor that is lodged in his chest and the red-raw scarring around it, like a starburst of a wound, doesn’t cover the scars from the knives that the Ten Rings used.

He pulls his shoulders back and lets Rhodey see all of it, because if Rhodey is going to make this decision, he should see all of it.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, his eyes soft, his voice soft, as he looks Tony over from head to toe. “Oh, Tony.”

“You’re not supposed to pity me, remember? We talked about that,” Tony replies, his voice faking lightness.

Rhodey crosses the space that exists between the two of them, narrowly avoiding the pieces of armour that are strewn across the floor. He curls a hand around the nape of Tony’s neck, the tips of his fingers sliding into his thick, dark hair, and presses his mouth to Tony’s.

“Oh,” Tony tries to say but is immediately muffled by Rhodey’s mouth.

Tony wraps his arms around Rhodey’s shoulders, and then, he trips over one of the gauntlets on the ground, and he accidentally lodges his elbow into Rhodey’s side, causing him to grunt and curl in on himself.

“Fuck.” Tony licks his dry mouth. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, honeybear. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Rhodey says, and there’s just a hint of breathlessness to his voice. “You just winded me. But get back over here.”

Rhodey drags him in again, his hands hot on the sharp curve of Tony’s hipbones, as he takes Tony’s mouth with his own all over again.

“We should have sex,” Rhodey tells him, matter-of-factly.

“What? No, if you’re doing this just to pity me, then-”

“Tony.” Rhodey looks unimpressed. “Tony, have I _ever_ done anything just to pity you?”

“Well, no,” Tony admits grudgingly.

“So, why do you think that I’d want to have sex with you out of pity?” Rhodey goes on to ask, his voice patient and soft.

“Because you can see it now,” Tony replies, crossly. “You can see the arc reactor, and you can see the cuts, and you can see everything that they did to me. Why the fuck would you want to have sex with me now? I’m not a fucking idiot; I know that physical attraction has a lot to do with sexual chemistry, and I know that was something that I had in fucking spades before Afghanistan. Not so much anymore.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that, oh, I don’t know, I’m still attracted you, even with the arc reactor and the cuts and the marks, and I still want to have sex with you, and right now, your self-esteem is really harshing my buzz at getting you naked and riding me.”

“Rhodey,” Tony says, his voice soft.

“Tony,” Rhodey replies in the exact same tone of voice. “Okay, all humour aside, I need you to listen to me, right now.”

Tony huffs. “I _am_ listening to you.”

“No, I need you to listen- _listen_ to me,” Rhodey says, firmly. “I love you. I am still attracted to you. I still want to have sex with you. I want to have sex with you _now_. I don’t care about the arc reactor. You want to know why?”

“Because you’re kinky? I don’t know,” Tony mutters under his breath.

“No, because that arc reactor is proof that I almost lost you-”

“That doesn’t sound like it’s conducive for arousal.”

“Let me finish,” Rhodey says, sternly. “It is proof that I almost lost you, but it is proof that you are standing here, right in front of me, and that you fought to get away from the people that hurt you and kept you away from me. I love _you_. I don’t just love your body, Tony. I love your mind and your good, good heart, and yes, I also love your body. Look,” he sighs, “look, if you… you don’t want to have sex, if you just want to go and watch TV or blow some shit up or show me the blueprints for that badass armour you’re gonna make me, let’s go and do that. But if you think that the reason why you don’t want to have sex is because _I_ don’t want to have sex, I think that they need to revoke your genius card, baby, because something went wrong in the application process.”

“Hey!” Tony says, offended.

Rhodey laughs and drags Tony in against him, and Tony is still taller than him, even in their late thirties, early forties, which still offends Rhodey on a mortal level, so it’s Rhodey who tucks his face against the hollow of Tony’s throat.

“I love you, I still think you’re sexy as fuck, even with that arc reactor, with the scars, with the marks. It’s _you_ that I love, love more than anything else in the world. I love you, and I will keep telling you that as many times as you want, if it makes you believe it any more.”

Tony’s throat flexes, and he pulls away, and then, he kisses Rhodey.

“You promise?” he asks. “You promise that you’re not just saying that to make me feel better? You’re really attracted to me; you really want to have sex with me?”

“Yes, absolutely yes.”

“Okay,” Tony says, choosing to believe him, because Rhodey has never lied to him; even in his moments of absolute agony, Rhodey has never lied to him, has always been brutal with his honesty, and it’s helped Tony.

“Good, can we have sex now?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Tony says, his voice almost a gush of emotion, and then, Rhodey is bearing him down to the ground, pushing him more like that.

Tony lands on his back, and the arc reactor hurts, but he ignores it, wrapping his arms around Rhodey’s shoulders, and Rhodey’s sliding his tongue into his mouth, as he straddles Tony’s lap, removing his shoulder.

Tony hears the clink of Rhodey’s belt around his jeans, and he’s like one of Pavlov’s dogs, because the sound goes straight to his cock, which hardens, curves against his belly and weeps pre-come against his belly.

Tony’s hand finds his cock, and he gnaws on the edge of his mouth, and Rhodey’s eyes are hot, as he watches Tony palm himself.

Tony thinks he’d believe anything that Rhodey said, as long as Rhodey kept looking at him like that.

* * *

Obadiah ends up being behind everything, behind his capture by the Ten Rings, by the illegal arms dealing to terrorist groups, behind Gulmira, and it ends up with Tony on his couch, with Obadiah hovering over him with that evil, smug smile of his, as he pulls Tony’s heart out of his chest.

No, no, it’s not his heart, because he left his heart with Rhodey that night before he went off to the Air Force for the first time, but it feels like Obadiah is ripping it from his ribcage in any case.

It comes with the agony and the understanding of imminent death, and he feels it everywhere, in his chest, behind his eyes, in his throat, in his hands and feet.

And then, the reactor is wrenched from his chest, and Obadiah is walking away, leaving him to die there on that couch.

The door shuts, and Tony falls off the sofa.

Somehow, and he doesn’t know how he manages it, but he makes his way down to his workshop, thinking of the tongue-in-cheek gift that Pepper had given him with the old reactor, the one that he’d wanted incinerated.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

He’s on his hands and knees in front of the table, and he stretches his hand high above his head, trying to reach for the glass casing containing the old reactor. He can’t seem to close his hand around it.

He turns onto his back, and he thinks, _this is it, this is it, I’m going to die_ , and the pain becomes worse, a hungry, pulsating thing that spreads up into his throat and his eyes, and there are tears there as well, like acid.

He shuts his eyes, thinking of Rhodey.

He likes that idea, the idea that Rhodey is the last thing that he sees. He sees Rhodey smiling, laughing, those white-white teeth of his, bleeding into the moon, one night that Rhodey had convinced him to sleep under the stars.

And then, he hears DUM-E’s voice, his inquisitive chirp, and he opens his eyes, half-disgruntled that he’s been pulled from such a good memory.

And then, he sees what DUM-E is holding in his claw.

“Good boy,” he rasps, taking the case from DUM-E and breaking it against the floor.

After he puts the arc reactor in, his vision goes white, completely white, and he thinks he falls unconscious, collapses under the weight of the pain, and he loses time, because the next thing that he sees is Rhodey running up to him, helping to his feet.

Tony holds him as tight as possible, his nails digging into Rhodey’s leather jacket, and he buries his face against Rhodey’s shoulder, as his feet find some purchase on the floor.

“The fuck, Tony? What happened?”

“Obadiah,” Tony whispers. “Obadiah, it was Obadiah all along. He was… he was the one that paid the Ten Rings to kill me; he sold the weapons under the table, and he just… he took the arc reactor.”

“What?” Rhodey says, breathlessly, and his hand falls to Tony’s chest.

Tony flinches, bodily, wrenching his body away.

When he closes his hand around the table in his workshop, he manages to lift his eyes to face Rhodey, who looks hurt at his violent outburst just then.

Tears sting like acid in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he gasps.

The hurt fades and is instantly replaced with determination. “What happened?” Rhodey demands, briskly.

“He used that auditory paralysis thing that I canned,” Tony says, dully, his voice rasping. “I was completely frozen. He put me on the couch. He told me that it was him who paid off the Ten Rings to kidnap me in Afghanistan. They realised that I wasn’t just some business partner that he didn’t like, but Tony Stark, so they upped the price and instead held me for ransom. He was the one who was selling the weapons to the Ten Rings under the table. He told me all of this, and then, he took the arc reactor out of my chest. He left the house, leaving me to die. I’m sorry. That’s why I flinched, because I remembered Obadiah touching the arc reactor. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, don’t be,” Rhodey says, his voice cracking at the edges, his hands smoothing over his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

Tony shakes his head, pressing his forehead against Rhodey’s. “Don’t be sorry at all. This is so fucked up. So fucked up. My godfather tried to kill me,” he says, a hard, pained laugh breaking free from his throat. “My godfather, he paralysed me, pinned me to a couch, and ripped what was the only thing keeping me alive out of my chest. The only reason I am alive is because Pepper is a hell of a lot more sentimental than me, because she chose to gift me with the arc reactor that I almost trashed. Pepper,” he says, suddenly, “Pepper, how is she?”

“She’s fine’ she’s with a couple of SHIELD agents. They’re arresting Obadiah.”

Tony pants. “No, it’s not going to be enough. I have to go.”

“You _can’t_ ,” Rhodey says, sternly, grabbing his hands before he stumbles off in search of the armour. “Tony, for fuck’s sake, you were in cardiac arrest just a couple of minutes ago. It is frankly _dumb luck_ that you are alive right now.”

“We don’t know that. I could have died, and then, come back, and all we’d have is a mark to show for it-”

“Or you’d just keep dying,” Rhodey snaps at him. “Or the shrapnel would pierce your heart again and again and again and again, and that’s all I’d see from you ever again, you constantly dying. You think I could watch that? You think I could bear that?”

Tony cups Rhodey’s face in his hands. “I’m fine _now_. And I’m the only one that can stop Obadiah.”

“No, you’re not. Let me pilot the armour in your place,” Rhodey insists.

Tony kisses him hard on his mouth, hard enough that his lungs ache with the effort. “Another time, I promise. This is mine. _Obadiah_ is mine. I have to do this. I _have_ to do this.”

Rhodey’s expression cycles through a war of emotions.

“I love you. Thank you for being willing to do this for me, but this is my fight.”

“Everything that is yours is mine,” Rhodey says, his voice dull.

“Can you understand that I might want to do this on my own?” Tony begs. “Please, Rhodey, I am asking you to let me do this on my own.”

“And if you die?” Rhodey demands.

“I didn’t die now,” Tony reminds him.

Rhodey looks immediately cross. “That doesn’t mean anything,” he grinds out.

“We don’t have time for this, and to teach you how to pilot the suit in my place would take too long. I just need to know one thing: do you trust me?”

Rhodey throws his hands up in the air. “Of course I do!”

“Then, I need you to trust me this time as well. I need you to know that I don’t have some sort of fucking death wish or anything. I just… I just need to do this. I need to stop Obadiah, or he’s going to hurt a hell of a lot more people than he already has, and I’m the only one that can stop him. I’m the only one strong enough. Please, _please_ , let me go and finish this.”

Rhodey considers him deeply, waits to see a single waver in his expression that he can seize on, and then, sighs, resigned.

“Promise me you won’t die,” he says, sternly, the muscle in his jaw jumping.

“I’ll try my best,” Tony replies, knowing that a promise he can’t possibly keep would only hurt in the long run.

Rhodey’s mouth curls up ruefully. “Sometimes, it’s just better to lie, Tony.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Go, before I decide to tie you up.”

“I love you,” Tony swears, kissing him hard on the mouth, and he climbs into the armour.

* * *

Tony almost dies, but Obadiah actually dies, and Tony considers it to be a job well done.

At least, ignoring the fact that he is responsible for his godfather’s death, the same godfather who, on the same night, tried to kill him for a second time, but to no avail.

He wakes up in the hospital, with no new marks on his body, and Rhodey sitting by his bedside. His hands start clawing at the arc reactor, the memory of the hole where the thing keeping him alive was too sharp for him to forget.

“Tony! Tony, it’s okay. You’re okay,” Rhodey hushes him, immediately, pulling his hands back to his sides, before he does something stupid like pull out the wires that might actually be keeping him alive. “The arc reactor’s there. You’re good.”

Tony’s voice is rough. “Where are we? What’s going on? What happened to Stane?”

“We’re in the hospital,” Rhodey soothes. “Don’t worry, I didn’t let anyone touch the arc reactor. You’ve been here for a couple of days. Stane’s… Stane’s dead.”

There’s a hard set to his features that tells her he’s in no way mourning for the man who tried to kill Tony twice.

God, Tony loves this man.

He pats Rhodey’s hand. “When are you springing me out of here?” he asks, his voice at a slur.

Rhodey chuckles, and it sounds thick. “The doctor’s got to give the go-ahead, first.”

“Doctor-shmoctor,” he dismisses, immediately. He starts attacking the wires at his wrists. “I feel good as new.”

“Fuck, Tony, don’t do that,” Rhodey curses. “You’ll go into cardiac arrest or something.”

Tony snorts, and immediately his chest starts throbbing in protest. He winces. “Like that’s never happened before,” he jokes, weakly.

Rhodey stares down at him, unimpressed.

“Too soon?” he offers.

“Sometimes, it really is better to just lie,” Rhodey says, his eyes fixed on his. “But then, I don’t know if it would’ve been better than how I saw you on that roof. I thought you were dead.”

“I didn’t die, though. You saw me, right? Is there a new mark?”

“No, no, there’s no new mark,” Rhodey says.

“That’s a good thing,” Tony prods.

“That doesn’t mean anything. You almost died, and just because you didn’t cross over the line between dead and not-dead, doesn’t mean anything.” Rhodey lifts their linked hands to his brow. “I’m fucking pissed, but I’m glad you’re awake now.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony feels the need to say.

It’s all that he thinks he should say to Rhodey, all the time.

“You’ll never change,” Rhodey says, and there’s an element of fondness to his voice.

“Probably not.” Tony looks down at his chest. “Is that a problem now?”

Rhodey looks at him, confused.

“I mean, you’ve put up with so much shit from me, and you’ve tried your hardest to stop me from doing stupid, reckless things, and I haven’t listened. At some point, you have to be looking at me in this hospital and wondering, _what am I staying here for_?”

Rhodey is silent for a few moments, which delivers a sharp stab of anxiety deep in Tony’s belly, and he begins to play with the frayed ends of the blanket draped over the lower half of his body, studiously avoiding Rhodey’s gaze.

“That is the stupidest fucking thing that I have ever heard,” Rhodey says, finally.

Tony startles and looks at him.

“Tony, you are the most stubborn, rash-”

Tony starts to flinch.

“-bravest, craziest _idiot_ that I have had the pleasure of knowing, but despite all of that, I wouldn’t give you up for anything in the world,” Rhodey finishes, his voice solemn and strained.

“But why?” Tony feels the need to ask and wonders if he’s inadvertently shooting himself in the foot. “Why bother? Couldn’t you just find someone who doesn’t… you know, have all this baggage?”

“Yeah, but I like your baggage,” Rhodey says, bluntly. “I like that you made me an armour without me even asking for one because you want to fight _with_ me, instead of fighting separate from me. I like that you send me inappropriate videos of you fucking yourself with vibrators while I’m on tour. I like that you send me care packages while I’m gone, full of the speciality flavour pop tarts that I like, Cheetos, Toll House cookies, _kachori_ , _pakoda_ , banana chips, _boondhi, aloo lachcha_ , tasty nuts and _pathra_. I like that you don’t watch the movies that I want to watch so that we can watch them together. I like that you call me _honeybear_ and _platypus_. I like that you wake up smiling at me. I like that when you look at me, my heart pounds in my chest like I’m about to have a heart attack.”

“I make you feel like that?” Tony asks in a small voice, uncertain and childlike.

“Look, there’s something that I’ve been meaning to show you, but I didn’t know how to… to bring it up.”

Tony looks at him, curiously. “If you’re about to tell me that you slept with a rent boy while I was in Afghanistan, I might douse you with saline solution.”

Rhodey laughs. “You’re way too much for me, baby. I don’t think I have time for anyone else, and honestly, while you were in Afghanistan, I was running on fumes. Don’t know how I made it to the end of those three months, but I did have those videos of you to keep me company.”

Tony smiles, smugly. “I’m glad they transcend stages in our relationship.” He softens, teeth playing with his lower lip. “I love you, and I’m… I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Rhodey dips his head, pressing his brow against Tony’s. “I don’t know what I’d do without you either. Those three months where I looked for you, it was hell, fucking _hell_.”

Tony lifts his hand, not bound to the cannula and the fluid hanging by his bed, to fold against the back of Rhodey’s head, so that he can close the space between them and kiss him, sliding his tongue into Rhodey’s mouth.

“I love you,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

“I know, baby,” Rhodey says, fondly, smoothing his thumb in the dip between Tony’s eyebrow. “I don’t like it – I’m not going to pretend that it’s something that I want to keep seeing happen – but I don’t want to be the guy that demands his partner change for him.”

“If there’s anyone on this Earth who’s entitled to expect me to change for them, it would be you,” Tony says, honestly, and he would.

He’d do it for Rhodey; if Rhodey asked him to hang up the armour, to put it in a cage and never open the door again, he’d do it, because he knows, in his bones, that Rhodey always has a reason for asking things of him.

Sometimes, he thinks that he trusts Rhodey’s mind more than he trusts his own.

“I think,” Rhodey says, heavily, “I think you need to build me that suit of armour.”

“So, we can do this together?” Tony asks, hopefully.

“Yeah, so we can do this together.”

* * *

Rhodey doesn’t like it when Tony outs himself as Iron Man in front of the entire world.

He likes it even less, when in a moment of stupidity, he enters the workshop, and Tony isn’t quick enough to close the holographic will he’s spent the last few months developing.

“ _The last will and testament of Anthony Edward Stark_ ,” Rhodey reads out loud, and then, his head snaps to Tony. “What the hell is this?”

Tony’s throat flexes. “It’s nothing, honey,” he says, smiling a false smile, hoping that it’s enough to fool Rhodey. “You know me? I like to think about the future.”

Rhodey considers him for a moment, and Tony squirms in his seat, feeling as though Rhodey is peeling back the layers that make his self, like he’s nothing more than an onion, and then, Rhodey pulls back, narrowing his eyes.

“There’s something that you’re not telling me.”

Tony clambers to his feet, turns his back on Rhodey in an attempt to make lying to him easier. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, briskly.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, softening his voice, as he approaches him.

Tony can hear his footfalls behind him, and then, Rhodey’s arms wrap around his waist. Rhodey rests his chin on Tony’s shoulder, his nose nudging into the warm, tender spot behind his ear.

“What’s going on, Tony?” Rhodey murmurs, smoothing his hands over Tony’s stomach, sliding up underneath the shirt.

Tony pauses. “I just… I don’t know. Sometimes, I do stupid shit, and I thought it would be a good idea to just get my house in order if something happens,” he says, carefully.


	5. v.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "out of spoons" square (I1) for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

Rhodey pulls his head back to give him a narrow, suspicious look. “I thought we agreed that you were going to come back.”

“Well, I probably would,” Tony says, quickly, “but I was just thinking that… you know, it’s always a good idea to keep things in place if there’s a rainy day, you know? I just… I know we’ve talked about the idea that this, whatever happens to me, might not always happen, and if it doesn’t happen, I don’t want to be the guy that thought everything was going to be good. You know, my grandfather didn’t have a will, and a lot of his wealth was in India, and it absolutely drove my mother mad trying to sort out everything. So, I just thought it was a good idea.” He turns in the circle of Rhodey’s arms. “Was I wrong?” he asks, innocuously.

Rhodey stares at him. “You’re lying to me.”

Tony pauses.

“Okay, how do you always know?” he asks, frustrated. “How do you… how do you always know when I’m lying? Is there a tic, a tell? Oh, my God, do I have a tell?”

Rhodey shakes his head, a smile tugging up at the corner of his lips. “No, you don’t have a tell. I just know you too well.”

“That rhymed,” Tony teases, poking him in the chest.

“Yeah, and you’re trying to change the subject.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tony says, haughtily.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, softly.

And then, Tony sees black, and his legs give out from underneath him.

“Fuck,” Rhodey snaps, grabbing him by the arms, before he bodily hits the floor, helping him to his feet. “What is it? What’s going on? What just happened?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, a breathless ache in his chest. “I should get to my desk.”

Rhodey wordlessly helps him back to his desk, putting him down in the seat.

“See that cigar box?” Tony says, every muscle in his body aching.

“Yeah,” Rhodey says, making a grab for it.

“It’s a palladium chip,” Tony explains, as he flicks open the box and pulls out one of the slabs of metal.

He rolls up his shirt, revealing the arc reactor in its full glory, coupled with red-raw circles and black-purple lines stretching out from the reactor’s cavity, like lines of a circuit-board. He pulls the reactor out of the cavity, opening the base to reveal the current core, smoking and burning to the touch.

“Is that supposed to be smoking?” Rhodey asks, dubiously.

Tony leans back against the chair. “If you must know, it’s neutron damage. It’s from the reactor wall,” he explains, laying the used core on the table for Rhodey to pick up.

“You had this in your body?” Rhodey says, his eyes shining with concern. “And how about the high-tech crossword puzzle on your chest and your neck?”

Tony blinks up at him. “I fell,” he says, flatly. “Thank you.”

He replaces the core of the arc reactor and picks up his glass of chlorophyll juice, draining it in a full gulp. When he looks up, Rhodey is still staring at him.

“What are you looking at?”

“I’m looking at you,” Rhodey says, bluntly. “You want to do this whole lone gunslinger act and it’s unnecessary. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Tony licks his dry mouth. “You need to trust me,” he murmurs. “Contrary to popular belief, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“I don’t believe you,” Rhodey shoots back.

Tony looks down at his lap. “What do you want me to say, huh?” he asks, tired.

“I want you to tell me the truth. I want you to show me the respect that I deserve as your partner and you not to lie to me, Tony. I love you, and I would support you through everything, but you have to be honest with me.” Rhodey drags his chair over to sit opposite him. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Tony’s throat flexes, and he digs his nails into the meat of his palm, leaving angry, red, half-moon marks in his skin. “I’m dying,” he says, before he loses nerve.

Rhodey blinks at him, not processing the words. “What?”

“I’m dying,” Tony says, his voice stronger this time around, his gut feeling as though it’s full of butterflies. “The, uh, the palladium core of the arc reactor is unsustainable. It’s… releasing toxins into my blood. The only thing keeping the shrapnel from reaching my heart is the thing that’s slowly poisoning me from the inside out.”

Rhodey stares at him.

Tony pulls his blood toxicity monitor out of the drawer, pricking himself wordlessly, and showing Rhodey the result, who takes the device from him, gingerly, like it’s made of glass or some precious stone, staring down at the number that flickers on the screen.

_78%._

Rhodey’s throat flexes, visibly. “I don’t know what to-” He stops himself, closing his eyes. “Okay, so, what’s the fix?” he asks, briskly.

“What?”

“What’s the fix? How do we stop… this number from going up?” The set of Rhodey’s jaw is like stone, as if he’d already decided that there was no other way out of this than that number going down.

“Rhodey,” It’s Tony’s turn to be soft, to be gentle, as he reaches out, tangling their hands together, “Rhodey, there’s a reason why I’m dying. It’s… because there’s no fix.”

Rhodey withdraws his hand from Tony’s. “I don’t believe that,” he says, stubbornly.

“It’s true,” Tony tells him.

“No, I don’t _believe_ that,” Rhodey snarls, his mouth pulling away to show the pale shine of his teeth. “I don’t believe that. For fuck’s sake, Tony, it’s _you_. You’re a fucking genius. For fuck’s sake, you made the world’s only working artificial intelligence, and he has a fucking personality. He has sentience. He’s a _he_. You made a circuit board from scratch when you were four. You made your first gun at seven, your first bomb at eight, your first engine at nine. You’re a fucking _genius_ , and what, you’re telling me _you_ don’t know how to fix this?”

“I don’t know how to fix this,” Tony says, honestly. “I just… I’ve tried. I’ve tried all the elements that are known to the world, and none of them are a sustainable core to keep the reactor running without killing me. Palladium was the best, and it’s… not good, it’s killing me too.”

“You can’t…” Rhodey stares at him and then, pinches the bridge of his nose. “There’s got to be something that we can do.”

“I don’t think that there is,” Tony says, kindly. “I just… I’ve tried everything that there is, and nothing is working. There is nothing left.”

Rhodey sinks in his seat, staring at Tony, blankly. Tony licks his lips and leans forward, taking Rhodey’s hands in his.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Tony says, his voice thick. “I’ve… I’ve been wanting to tell you for ages. I just… I don’t know, I guess I was too much of a coward to face you and let you know that I’d failed, that this might be the end of the line for us.”

“But how do we… I mean, how do we know that this isn’t just like all the other times you’ve… you’ve _died_ ,” Rhodey struggles to get the word out. “Why do we not think that you’ll just wake up this time around, and everything will be okay?”

“Because it’s like what you said with the arc reactor, when Stane took it out, and you said that it was just as likely that I wouldn’t die and that the shrapnel would just keep entering my heart, and I would be stuck in a state of almost death, suspended. It’s entirely possible that could happen, and I just want to make sure that if it does, if I’m not… capable of being able to do this later, I want it ready for everyone else. I want it ready for you.”

“Tony, I don’t,” Rhodey stumbles over the words, and there are tears in his eyes. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to this. I don’t… I don’t know how to come to terms with this.”

“I don’t know how to come to terms with it either. I just… You needed to know.”

Rhodey’s mood changes like something’s been switched on the inside. “What the _fuck_ , Tony?”

Tony swallows hard.

“What the fuck, Tony. You’re at… if this machine is accurate, 78% of your blood is poisoned, which means you have 78 opportunities to tell me that this was going on and you didn’t do that,” Rhodey says, clambering to his feet, glowering down at him.

Tony peers up at him, and all sensible thought leaves his mind. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he says, stupidly.

Rhodey’s brow furrows. “Did you actually just tell me that you didn’t want me to worry over the fact that you’re _dying_?” he asks, incredulously.

“It’s a little more complicated than just that-”

“Why don’t you uncomplicate it for me?” Rhodey asks, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“Okay, so, the, uh, the palladium poisoning started around the end of February. By that stage, it was around 10-15% of my blood. I had pretty normal symptoms, you know? Nausea, aches and pains, fatigue, and then, my skin started to look like a circuit diagram, after the palladium started rising to my skin. After a while, there was loss of motor control, my entire body started to shut down, more serious symptoms.”

“So, the night the Expo opened…” Rhodey trails off.

“I wasn’t drunk,” he reassures. “It was the palladium. So, after a while, there were a few things that I needed to get set in motion, before, you know, I kicked the bucket.” Tony shrugs, even if he’s as far from nonchalant as he possibly could be. “My will, assets, etcetera. I’ve named Pepper CEO when I’m no longer in control of my faculties. It turns out, according to the company constitution of Stark Industries, I’m allowed to appoint my successor. My shares are going to be split between you and Pepper and Sharon. The rest of my estate was also going to be split between the three of you. Oh, and I, um, I set up a fund for Roberta and Terrance, and you guys won’t have to worry about college or anything else for Lila. That’s all, that’s all done, and I don’t want you to think that I’m only being generous because I’m dying, ‘cause I was always planning on taking care of all of you.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Your family has been my family for decades, and I’d never dream of not taking care of them if I could. I know that they probably won’t want to accept my money, but still, I just thought-”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Rhodey says, his voice sharp around the edges of those words. “I don’t… I don’t care about the fact that you wrote up your will and you’re giving me a third of your stuff and you want to financially support my family – but we are going to have a conversation about that at a later date, I can promise you that. I don’t give a shit what’s in your will. You’re on your deathbed, and _that’s_ what matters to me. You’re on your deathbed, and you didn’t tell _me_ , your best friend for twenty-six years now, your lover and your partner in everything else for twenty- _two_ years, and you’re only telling me this now, telling me that you’re dying and there’s no hope and that you’re fully expecting that in the next coming weeks, because, yes, I am a college graduate just like you and yes, I do have an engineering background, which means I am capable of doing mathematics, and if your blood was poisoned to the extent of 10-15% at the end of February, and it’s the end of May now, and you’ve got 78%, that means you’ve probably got approximately three weeks before your blood is fully poisoned. _Three weeks_ , Tony. You’ve got three weeks, and it’s more than fucking likely that you’ll lose your faculties long before that. We have three weeks together; you have _three_ weeks, and you didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell _me_ , the person who’s been with you through all of this, and that’s not a good thing, Tony. That’s far from a good fucking thing. You couldn’t have insulted me more than if you’d tried.”

Tony ducks his head, flinching, his eyes damp with tears.

“I love you, Tony. I love you so fucking much. I love you more than anything else in the world. Those three months where I thought you were dead, they were the worst in my life. My heart was in my throat, _constantly_ , and I was so sure that every day that I headed out into that fucking desert, dealing with people who took one look at my face and spat at my feet for more than one fucking reason, I was going to be shown your dead body, and it _destroyed_ me. But I did it, I did it because I love you, because I can’t bear the idea of living in a world that doesn’t have you in it, and I’m not going to fucking throw myself out of a window to be with you in death. No, I promised I’d find you, and there wasn’t a world that I’d agree to where you died out there and I didn’t try and find you, where I didn’t do anything and everything in my power to look for you and get you back to where you were safe, _with me_. I did that for _you_. I did all of that for you, and I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty, because I know, I _know_ if I went missing, if I were out there and I was being hurt, you would burn this whole fucking world to the ground to keep me safe, to get me back, but it fucking _blows_ my mind that you would do this to me, after everything that we’ve been through, after everything that we’ve shared.”

Tony sits in stunned, resigned silence.

“I have known you longer than I have known anyone other than my parents and my sister. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but you go and do something like this, after everything, after everything that we’ve been through and been to each other, and it doesn’t just blow my mind, Tony. It fucking _hurts_. It hurts that you would think so little of me that you wouldn’t tell me about any of this until you’re on your deathbed and dividing up your empire. I don’t want your money, Tony. I don’t want a fucking cent or a share or anything you want to give me in that godforsaken will. I don’t want it. I just want _you_ , and if you can’t be there for me, what the fuck do I have here, huh? Just things? I don’t want things, Tony, and if you loved me half as much as you claim to love me, you would know that. I guess you don’t though. I guess you thought that I would be like every other fucking urchin that you knew, that I’d just want whatever you would be willing to give me, but I’m not, Tony. _I’m not_. I’m not that guy. I love you and clearly, you don’t fucking care about that or about me at all.”

And then, he storms off, leaving Tony alone in his workshop alone.

It’s as though all the warmth has left the universe in that moment.

He wraps his arms around himself, and abruptly feels like crying.

So, he does.

The tears sting like acid in his eyes, and they trail paths of fire down his face. A lump forms in his throat, thick and acrid, and he can’t swallow past it, and everything hurts; his body hurts, and his heart hurts, and his mind hurts, and he can’t breathe.

He grips the edge of the table, and he just cries.

* * *

When Tony manages to drag himself out of the workshop, his skin dry and clammy in equal measure, somehow, he expects to be alone in his mansion, as he always is in this cold, dead mausoleum (soon to be his, he expects, but no, he’s left explicit instructions; it will be easy for him, of course, because he has no children, no brothers, no father, no mother, no one left for him at all, so someone just has to burn him, and it will be done; no, that’s wrong too; he has Rhodey, or at least, he _had_ Rhodey, and this might have been the last straw, the last unbroken piece, now broken).

But he’s not alone.

Rhodey is there, at the long stretch of window, staring out over the cliffs, into the sea that just looks black now, in the middle of the night.

Tony shifts on his feet, uncomfortable.

Rhodey doesn’t turn around, even though he must hear Tony behind him.

“I thought you might have left,” he offers, his voice soft, unsure.

Rhodey makes a derisive sound at the back of his throat. “Again, you prove how well you know me.”

Tony flinches and folds his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what to say to you,” he says, honestly.

“That’s strange. You usually know exactly what to say at any given moment.”

“I just… I just meant that I would have understood if you’d left, that’s all,” he says, quietly. “I upset you, and you have every right to be upset, and I just, I don’t know, I thought that you might go away, because you needed to get away from me.”

“Tony, if I get away from you right now, you might keel over and die or at least become unresponsive, which means I might have wasted the precious time we have left together walking out on you, which means that I am going to stay right here. I’m not moving a fucking muscle.”

“But you’re still angry?”

“I am fucking furious.” Rhodey’s shoulders are taut with tension.

And then, he stretches out his hand.

Tony takes the invitation for what it is, walking forward, crossing the space between them, and he takes Rhodey’s hand.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me,” Rhodey says, his voice thin. “Did you-did you think I wouldn’t care, or that I wouldn’t understand?”

Tony bites his lip. “I wanted to make things easier on you,” he confesses.

“How the hell would you have made things easier on me?”

“I made you a suit,” Tony blurts out.

Rhodey stills.

“What?”

“Rhodey, after Obie- _Stane_ ,” he forces to correct himself because he refuses to think of that bastard as anything but the monster who tried to kill him (the godfather who loved him never existed, and isn’t that just the fucking story of his life?). “I took certain measures to make sure that nothing like that would ever happen again.” He squares his shoulders. “I never wanted to be put in that position ever again. So, I took precautions.”

Rhodey looks almost afraid to ask. “What kind of precautions?”

“DNA coding, for one,” he explains. “Everything in my house, from JARVIS to the locks on my kitchen cabinets need my DNA to get in, including the Iron Man suits. Not to mention, you know I changed the protocols to JARVIS. He’s authorised to fuck shit up if he thinks I’m in danger. I’ve changed everything now to make sure that you can access everything. I mean, you already had access to pretty much everything, but this just cinches it. You’re the only one,” he clears his throat, “you’re the only one that I trust in this world.”

He looks at Rhodey, equally terrified and resigned to his reaction.

“What the _fuck_ , Tony,” he breathes. “You realise how-how fucked up that is?”

“I just… I wanted to explain to you what I was doing. I just, I wanted you to understand what I wanted to do with this. I wasn’t lying to you for months, Rhodey. I wasn’t. It was just that I didn’t know what to do with this. I didn’t know _how_ to tell you. I thought, I thought this would be the easiest way, the cleanest way.”

“How? How would this be easy, clean?” Rhodey demands. “Tony, if you think that I wouldn’t, wouldn’t _react_ if you just, if you just died on me, I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know how to make you fucking understand that I love you, and that it would destroy my fucking life if you died. And if you died without me knowing what the fuck was happening, that would be worse, that would be the fucking _worst_. I don’t know how to make you understand that. I don’t know how to make you understand that it would fucking _hurt_ if you died, and it is fucking insulting that you would stand here and tell me about all the things that you’ve done for your stupid plot to make me somehow _okay_ with your death.”

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Tony says, desperate and half-wild.

“Just tell me, tell me the truth, why you kept this from me. _Why_?”

Tony licks his lips. “I told you before, it was supposed to make things easier for you.”

“How?” Rhodey demands.

“What do you want me to say?” Tony shouts. “That I thought if I acted like a raging bastard and ignored what was happening to me before I died that you wouldn’t miss me? That you’d just be glad I was fucking gone, that you didn’t have to put up with me anymore?”

“Is that what you think?” Rhodey exclaims. “That I just _put up_ with you? Are you insane?”

“No,” Tony says, sharply. “I’m not having this conversation. This conversation is not happening, understood?”

“Tony, you can’t keep running away from things like this,” Rhodey says, furiously.

“I told you, I’m not comfortable having this conversation, okay-”

“Yeah, well, you lost all rights to be comfortable or uncomfortable with this conversation when I walked in on you preparing your fucking will and you telling me that you’re actually dying from fucking blood poisoning, and that you’ve been dying from this for months, and this is the first time that you’ve opened your mouth about it to me. So, yeah, we’re going to have this conversation, and we’re having it _now_. What did you say? You thought if you acted like a raging bastard and ignored what was happening to you before you died that I wouldn’t _miss_ you? That I’d just be glad you were gone, that you were _dead_ , that I didn’t have to put up with you anymore?”

Tony makes a face, twisting his head to look at somewhere in the living room that isn’t Rhodey.

“You realise how fucked up this is, of course?” Rhodey prods. “You realise how insulting this is to _me_? The man who’s been with you through everything, since you were fourteen, who’s been your lover and your partner and your best friend through everything, who was there when Tiberius Stone had the fucking nerve to _hit_ you right in front of me and who threw that asshole onto his curb just for touching you like that, who was there when your parents died, who was there when Jarvis died and your Aunt Peggy got sick, and then, when you were fucking shot right in front of me, then _Afghanistan_? Are you forgetting about that all of a sudden?”

“I never forget about Afghanistan,” Tony says, lowly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "forgiveness" square (N4) for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

“Really, are you fucking sure about that? Because it sure as hell seems like you do. Because it sure as hell seems like you forget that I wandered through the fucking desert for three months looking for you when everyone else thought you were dead, and your corpse was being eaten by fucking crows-”

“You know what, I’m really fucking sick and tired of you talking about how difficult it was for you to wander through the desert for three months looking for me, Rhodey!” Tony barks back. “I didn’t ask you to do that, okay. I didn’t ask you to give up three months of your life fruitlessly looking for me. You want to know what was worse than three months wandering through the desert looking for me, Rhodey? It was living in a cave with terrorists who wanted to kill me and had undergone two life-threatening cardiothoracic surgeries without fucking anaesthesia or sterilised surgical equipment. It was being tortured, beaten, assaulted, on a daily basis. It was watching a man who hated everything that I represented but still saved my life _die_ right in front of me. It was acknowledging that everything I deluded myself into believing wasn’t true at all, that I had just been a fucking idiot all of these years. _That_ was what those three months were for me. And I love you, and I am… you have no idea how it makes me feel that you did that for me, Rhodey, that you were willing to look for me for that long, against all reason, that you put yourself through that, because you love me, because it would hurt me if something happened to you, but I didn’t expect you to do any of it. And I hate that you always throw that back in my face like I don’t know how much you do for me, like I don’t know all the things that you have sacrificed for me, and I don’t need you to keep emotionally blackmailing me with Afghanistan to make me do things the way you want me to do them.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rhodey asks, flatly.

Tony swallows, thickly.

“You didn’t ask for me to do that for you? I know that, I know that you didn’t ask me to do that for you, Tony, but that’s what you do for someone that you love. If something happens to them, and there is even a slight possibility that they’re still alive, you do whatever it fucking takes to find that person. _That’s_ why I came for you in Afghanistan, okay? That’s why I disobeyed orders from my commanding officers, defied them, even. I came for you, because I can’t bear to live a life where you’re not in it, and for you to say that you didn’t ask me to do that for you, that is cheap, Tony. That is so fucking cheap. I get it, I get it that Afghanistan was awful for you, that you went through something that I can’t even imagine, that I can’t even begin to understand or empathise with, but if you think that I’ve forgotten, forgotten what you’ve been through, that it doesn’t make me feel like shit that I couldn’t protect you from any of that, that at the end of all of it, you had to save yourself and I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t even do _that_ for you after three months spent in the desert looking for you, you are more of an idiot than I thought you were.”

Rhodey leaves the window and starts pacing, and then, finally, he stops, angling his body to face Tony, his expression agonised in a way that makes Tony’s chest hurt more than it already does with the arc reactor.

“Do you really think that I talk about those three months because I want to emotionally blackmail you?” he asks, his voice a pinch of what it used to be. “Do you… after all these years together, through everything, do you really think I’m interested in controlling you, making you do things the way that I want you to do them? Do you really feel that way?”

“Rhodey, I…” Tony stammers for the correct words.

“Those three months were hell for me, a completely different hell than being up there in those fucking planes, with you a whole world away and not knowing if you were okay, if you were safe, if you needed something, if you needed _me_. And yeah, I was thinking about the time where you were shot right in front of me, and at least, I was there, but those times, what could I have possibly done for you, Tony, huh? And those three months, what the fuck could I have possibly done for you, huh? How could I have protected you? How could I have saved you? Every fucking night, I dreamed about you. I dreamed about finding you and saving you and protecting you, because, yeah, maybe it was fucked, but I wanted to be your hero-”

“You are,” Tony says, with a passion that borders on madness, “you _are_ my hero, Rhodey.”

“But I wasn’t, was I?” Rhodey says, bitterly. “You had to save yourself, and that… that killed me, because those three months seemed so useless in the end.”

“If it weren’t for you, I would have died,” Tony tells him, reaching to fist his hand in Rhodey’s shirt.

Rhodey tries to shrug him off, but he holds fast.

“You’re not listening to me, Rhodey. Yes, you didn’t save me from the Ten Rings. Yes, you didn’t get me out of that cave. But you got me out of the desert.”

Rhodey’s throat flexes.

“If it weren’t for you, if you hadn’t shown up at the time when you did, I would be _dead_. I would, I would be dead, Rhodey. I would have died in that desert, and if I didn’t, it was because of you.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “But you don’t get it, because you have the nerve to stand here and say that it would be easy if you died, that you wanted to make it easier for me-”

Tony winces. “Now, when you say it like that-”

“I don’t think that there’s any other way of interpreting what you said,” Rhodey snaps.

“Okay, yeah,” Tony deflates. “That’s exactly what I said.”

“I don’t understand, Tony,” Rhodey says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just don’t fucking get it. Tony, I don’t remind you of those three months because I want to make you feel guilty or want to emotionally blackmail you or anything. I’m not fucking Tiberius Stone, and you should know that by now.”

“I do. _I do_.”

“Do you? Do you really?” Rhodey prods. “Because in my opinion, you don’t accuse your partner of fucking… _twenty_ years of emotionally blackmailing you because you didn’t tell him that you were on your fucking deathbed. Tony, I don’t remind you of those three months because I want to make you feel guilty, even though you should, you really should. I remind you because for some insane, inane reason, you don’t remember how much I love you, the things that I would _do_ for you, and you go and do shit like this. You go and-and you don’t tell me for months that you’re dying, and you only tell me the truth when I catch you in a lie and you’re literally _weeks_ away from dying. You don’t understand that it would fucking _kill_ me if you died on me, just suddenly or even if I knew what was going on. Either way, it kills me, Tony, and you keep forgetting how much I love you even though we’ve been together for twenty years and you should _know_ this by now. And now, after everything that we’ve been through, you have the nerve to stand there and tell me that you did all of this, that you _hid_ all of this, because you wanted it to be _easier_ on me if you died. I think that’s bullshit.”

Tony gnaws on his lower lip.

“What?” Rhodey’s voice is at taunt, thin and cold. “You’ve got nothing for me all of a sudden? You’re always good at filling the silence. Did I finally make Tony Stark speechless?”

“You’re right,” he says, quietly.

Rhodey startles, because whatever he was expecting, he wasn’t expecting that.

“You’re right. It was unfair to you,” Tony goes on to say. “I thought it would be easier for you, cleaner. A clean break-”

“This isn’t fucking Twilight, okay, Tony?” Rhodey growls. “You’re not fucking Edward, and I’m not fucking Bella, and you don’t get to-”

“You’re right,” Tony says, cutting him off, his voice sliding high. “You’re right. It was stupid, it was so fucking stupid, but I guess,” he ducks his head, rubbing his hand over the back of his skull, “I guess I thought this would be better, and I know, _I know_ that it was unfair to you, that I shouldn’t have taken your choice away like that, but I thought it would be better than you having to watch me deteriorate, to get sick and to become… to become that person in the bed that you have to take care of, and you would have to lose parts of yourself to keep me alive, and that’s not fair, Rhodey. That’s not love, and I know you, I know you love me, and I know you would do it. I know you would be at my bedside, wiping the drool and changing my sheets and feeding me soup and reading me to sleep, and I didn’t want that to become your life. I didn’t want… I didn’t want our life, our story to end like that, with you resenting me.”

“I could _never_ resent you.”

“You might have, if you’d seen me like that.” Tony’s mouth twists, not a smile but close. “You might have resented me, if I’d gotten sicker and sicker and less handsome and more needy, and any life that you might have had with me just went away in a puff of smoke. I just wanted to save you from that. I wanted you to have a better life than that.”

“Tony, you wouldn’t have _died_ , though,” Rhodey pushes. “You would have just… you would have just gotten sicker and sicker, and then, maybe, we would have put you on life support or something, but it wouldn’t have killed you because of everything else. So, how the fuck was I supposed to move on?”

“I don’t know!” Tony throws his hands up in the air. “I don’t know. It’s not a perfect science. It’s not a perfect plan, Rhodey. It was just the best that I could do with what I had. I just… I wanted to make it as easy as possible on you. I didn’t want to close my eyes for the final time with the knowledge that I’d made your life in any way worse. I thought it would be easier for you to move on, if you didn’t have the knowledge of me getting sicker hanging over your head. Was it stupid and thoughtless? Clearly. I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know why I thought that it would be easy on you. I don’t know…” He drags his hand over his face. “I’m fucked up,” he finally says.

“I knew that already.”

Tony winces. “Okay, that hurt, I’m not gonna deny that, but at the same time, it’s true, so I can’t really protest so much. I’m fucked up. I’m not going to be that person and say that it’s because I had a crappy childhood, because my father was mean to me and didn’t like me very much and probably didn’t even love me, because my mother didn’t know _how_ to love me. I do know that you love me. I do know that. I know it like I know nothing else, but you’re probably right in that I don’t know how to _understand_ it. I don’t know why, after all of these years, I’m still expecting you to cut and run when things get too hard with me, Rhodey, because I know I’m drama, I’m a lot of things that make your life complicated, and I know there are people in your life that question why you’re with me, why we’re friends in the first place, and I know there are times in _your_ life, where you’ve had to think on that, because it’s not so easy being with me.”

His shoulders deflate.

“I am not an easy person to love,” he says, honestly, “and there hasn’t been a lot of it in my life, and I just thought that I had used you too much, that I had taken too much from you, and I didn’t want to keep taking from you. Not just because you’re worth more than that, because you’re more important than that for me, but also because I didn’t want this to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. When I… when I made the decision not to tell you about the palladium poisoning, it wasn’t because I wanted you to hate me by the end of it. I mean, I thought about that; I wondered if it would be easier if you did hate me, because then, by the time I was completely without my faculties, you would be able to walk away from me, and you could move on; you could find someone else, someone who wasn’t as much of a fucking parasite as I am.”

Rhodey opens his mouth to argue, making a derisive sound at the back of his throat.

Tony shakes his head. “Please, I just… I need to say this. I did think about that. I thought about… I thought about making this the most reckless time of my life, the Stark Expo, racing in the Grand Prix, throwing a fortieth birthday party to end all parties, getting drunk in the armour and forcing you to fight me.” He falls quiet at the look of abject horror on Rhodey’s face. “It was going to be a thing, me pushing you away,” he says, lamely, “and then, I thought… no, I couldn’t do that, not because I’m such a good person or anything, but because at the end of the fucking day, I am incredibly selfish, Rhodey, and I love you too much, and I don’t know how I could have done those things and then watched you walk away from me. It would have been too much. So, I decided against it.”

“It would have killed me too,” Rhodey says, quietly. “To fight you, to walk away from you. I don’t know if I could’ve done it, and if I could’ve, I don’t know how I could’ve lived with it. So, I’m glad you decided against it.”

Tony slants a mirthless smile at him. “Thank God for small mercies.” He looks away. “I decided against it because I didn’t want you hating me in these last few weeks or months. I didn’t want to be left with that memory of you, the memory that I’d finally managed to drive _you_ away as well. So, I thought… I would still keep it from you, but that I wouldn’t try my hardest to piss you off. Guess that failed.”

“It failed _miserably_ ,” Rhodey stresses.

“I just, I thought that we could be happy in these last few weeks. I just wanted to enjoy the time that we had left together. I wanted to die in peace, and I wanted to know that I hadn’t… I hadn’t caused more burdens, more problems for you in the short time that we had left, Rhodey. I didn’t want you to destroy yourself for me, because I know you would. I know you, and I know you would have spent these last few weeks trying to come up with a cure, calling everyone that we know, trying to find some sort of solution to the palladium poisoning, and you would have tried to fix me-”

Rhodey grinds his teeth. “Yeah, because that’s what you do when someone you love is going to die. You try to fix it, Tony. You try and stop it from happening, because newsflash, it fucking sucks to have someone that you love _die_ on you.”

“There is no fix, though,” Tony says, an almost hysterical edge to his voice.

He grips Rhodey by the shoulders as if that will convey how earnest he is at this.

“Rhodey, I’ve done everything possible to fix this. I’ve looked at every permutation and every combination of all the known elements. I can’t… there is _nothing_ left to be done. There is _no_ way of fixing it. And so, I didn’t see why I had to ruin these last few weeks that I had left with you searching for something that is never going to be found. I didn’t want you to ruin yourself for me. I didn’t want you to drive yourself into this… this quest to fix me, to destroy yourself in the process. It would have exhausted you, and it would have been miserable for you, and it would have been miserable for me, watching you go through that when I could have stopped it just by keeping my mouth shut, and I know, I know _you_ , and I know that when I died and if you’d known, and you hadn’t been able to stop it from happening, that would have been worse; that might have actually killed you. I didn’t want that to happen to you. I wanted you to live and be happy _after_ me too, and I just wanted to spend that time with you. I just wanted to spend these last few weeks with you, happy, and maybe that doesn’t justify why I did this, and maybe you think I’m a fucking terrible person, and maybe you want to walk away, and I’ll get it. I’ll understand, but I just… you should know that it’s not because I don’t love you.”

“I won’t be,” Rhodey says, firmly. “I won’t be able to just live; I won’t be able to just be _happy_ , Tony. I love you; you’re the love of my life. I have spent more time with you than I have with any other person alive, except for my parents. I know that you just wanted to spend this time with me, and I get it, I get that you just wanted to go off in peace, but I can’t do that, Tony. I can’t watch you fade away, and I would have noticed. Even if you hadn’t told me, I would’ve noticed that you were sick, that something was wrong. I would have _noticed_ , so I just think it’s laughable that in your mind, we would have these perfect few weeks, and then, one night, you would have gone to bed, and never woken up again. I just… you were selfish,” he says, coldly, “you were only thinking of yourself and not me, the person who loves you the most in the world. You were selfish, Tony.”

“You’re right, I was,” Tony says, quietly.

“It would kill me if you died,” Rhodey replies, matching his tenor and tone, “It would. You’re the love of my life. If I… if it weren’t for fucking _don’t ask don’t tell_ , I would’ve married you by now, and you just… you just thought it would be so easy for me to put you away like that, to just move on from you in that bed. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, and it’s not fair to expect me to, because you think that it would be easier on me or because it’s what you want for me. I am a separate person, Tony. I am not an extension of you or your wants and needs. I exist, Tony; I have thoughts and feelings and wants and needs, and one of those things is that I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“That’s not possible anymore.”

“And another,” Rhodey says, his voice stronger, “is that I don’t want the love of my life to lie to me about important things like this.”

Tony deflates like all the air is seethed from him. “Okay, okay,” he says quietly. “I love you.”

Rhodey drags his hand over his face. “I love you too,” he replies.

“What are we going to do about this?”

Rhodey’s face goes dark and closed off, and then, he reaches for Tony. Tony goes so willingly into his arms, folding into his embrace like there is no other place where he would rather be. He nudges his nose against the hollow of Rhodey’s throat, his hands grasping the planes of his back.

And then, the doorbell rings.

* * *

Rhodey answers the door, while Tony lingers some way behind.

There’s a man wearing a black trench coat and an eyepatch standing on the other side, a familiar man.

“I thought that you could break in. Ringing my doorbell is a little anticlimactic, don’t you think?” Tony calls out.

Fury looks over Rhodey’s shoulder at Tony. “I think I have something that might help with your predicament.”

“Wait,” Rhodey sends Fury a flat look, “you’ve broken in before?”

Fury sighs and stretches out his hand. “Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD.”

Rhodey shakes Fury’s hand, warily. “As in Coulson?”

“One of my agents,” Fury says, baring his teeth.

Rhodey considers him for a moment; something passes between the two men, and then, Rhodey blows out a breath between his teeth. “Okay, then,” he says and steps aside for Fury to enter.

* * *

Fury drinks from his cup of coffee. “That thing in your chest is based on unfinished technology.”

Tony lifts an eyebrow. “No, it was finished,” he corrects. “It has never been particularly effective until I miniaturised it and put it in my-”

Fury is busy shaking his head. “No. Howard said the arc reactor was the stepping stone to something greater. He was about to kick off an energy race that was gonna dwarf the arms race. He was onto something big, something so big that it was gonna make the nuclear reactor look like a triple-A battery.”

Tony closes his mouth around the rim of his own mug. “Just him or was Anton Vanko in on this too?” he asks, pointedly.

Fury sighs. “Anton Vanko is the other side of that coin. Anton saw it as a way to get rich. When your father found out, he had him deported. When the Russians found out he couldn’t deliver they shipped his ass off to Siberia and he spent the next twenty years in a vodka-fuelled rage. Not quite the environment you want to raise a kid in,” he says, meaningfully, and Tony shifts his gaze before Fury can read too much there, “the son, I’m guessing, you’ve been doing some investigation on.”

Tony clears his throat. “You told me I hadn’t tried everything. What do you mean I haven’t tried everything? What haven’t I tried?”

Fury shrugs. “He said that you were the only person with the means and knowledge to finish what he started.”

Rhodey makes a derisive sound. “I’m sorry, _Howard Stark_ said that?” he says, disbelievingly.

“He did,” Fury says, steadily. He looks at Tony. “Are you that guy? Are you? ‘Cause if you are, then you can solve the riddle of your heart.”

Tony pauses. “Okay, that sounded super Hallmark.”

Fury purses his lips thin. “Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t suit me, does it?”

Tony and Rhodey shake their heads in wordless unison.

“Look,” Tony says, his voice in layers of barbed wire, “I don’t know where you get your information, but he wasn’t my biggest fan.”

Fury leans back against the kitchen counter. “What _do_ you remember about your dad?”

“He was cold; he was calculating,” Tony replies, woodenly. “He never told me he loved me. Hell, he never even told me he liked me, so it’s a little tough for me to digest when you’re telling me that he said the whole future was riding on me and he’s passing it down. I don’t _get_ that.” His voice rises in inflection. “You’re talking about a guy who’s happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school,” he mutters under his breath, staring at the wall so that he can have some semblance of protection from the vulnerability he’d just expunged from himself.

“That’s not true,” Fury says, gently.

Tony laughs, harsh and grating. “Well, then, clearly you knew my dad better than I did.”

“Look, your father was an ass, Stark,” Fury sighs. “He was clearly an ass to you, and he was an ass to everyone else. Of course, it’s different because you were a kid, and you couldn’t talk back to him the way that we could, but I did know the guy. He was one of the founding members of SHIELD.”

Tony chokes on his own spit. “I’m sorry, what?”


	7. vii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Howard Stark" square (N5) of the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

“Your father, he was one of the founding members of SHIELD,” Fury says, devoid of expression.

And then, SHIELD agents are storming his mansion, and Tony and Rhodey are straightening into awareness, watching them with a keen eye.

Between two SHIELD agents is a giant wooden crate, with the words _FRAGILE_ and _CONFIDENTIAL_ written on either faces of the crate in printed lettering.

“What the hell is this?”

Fury drops the empty mug in the sink, running water into it. “I’ve got a two o’clock,” he says, breezily.

And then, he’s walking towards the door.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Tony calls out. “What is this? What are you doing? _Where_ are you going?”

“Okay, you’re good, right?” Fury says, blinking fast and wide at him.

“No, I’m not good,” Tony replies, a certain edge to his voice.

“You got this? Right? Right?”

“Got what? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to get.”

“I’ve got one of my agents at Stark Industries. You can talk to Agent Coulson if you have any issues, but I’m sure Colonel Rhodes is fully capable of dealing with your idiosyncrasies.”

Rhodey glowers at him, his arms folded across his chest.

Fury grins with all of his teeth. “And Tony, remember, I got my eye on you,” he says, deliberately pointing at his eyepatch.

A woman saunters into the house, with dark auburn hair and moss-green eyes and an hourglass figure squeezed into a black catsuit (although, judging by the look in her eyes, that suit is more than just scraps of leather put together, like Michelle Pfeiffer’s costume in the Batman movie).

“We’ve disabled all communications,” she says, pleasantly, rocking back on her heels. “No contact with the outside world.”

Tony keeps his eyes on her, without flinching. “J, did she really disable you?”

“I am offended that you would even think that anyone would ever think themselves capable of such things, Sir,” JARVIS says, cheerfully.

The agent’s face falls, curdling into something displeased. “Good luck,” she says, tersely, and turns on her feet, stalking out of the mansion.

Agent Coulson is standing atop the stairs.

“I need coffee,” Tony tells him.

“I’m not here for that,” Agent Coulson replies, blandly. “I’ve been authorised by Director Fury to use any means necessary to keep you on premises. If you attempt to leave or play any games, I will tase you and watch Supernanny while you drool into the carpet. Okay?”

Rhodey casts him a flinty look. “I will beat the shit out of you,” he says, coldly. “Are _you_ okay with that, Agent Coulson?”

“Colonel Rhodes-”

“You don’t come into my partner’s house and threaten him right in front of me. That’s just fucking stupid.”

“Look,” Agent Coulson sighs, “we just want him to get better.”

“ _Him_ is standing right here,” Tony drawls.

Rhodey pats him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, babe. I’m talking to him.”

Tony throws his hands up in the air.

Rhodey turns his attention back to Agent Coulson. “You ever think that someone might be inspired or motivated if you _didn’t_ threaten to tase him?”

Agent Coulson shrugs. “Not in my experience.”

“Fine, are you aware that Tony has a heart condition? Are you aware that he has a potentially unstable fusion reactor lodged in his chest?”

Agent Coulson’s brow knits together, and he shifts on his feet, uncomfortably. “I am aware, yes.”

Rhodey smiles at him, condescending and kind in equal measure, the sort of smile that one gives to a child that just isn’t _getting_ it. “What do you think would happen if you tased a man who had a heart condition and a potentially unstable fusion reactor in his chest?”

Agent Coulson scowls. “I presume something bad.”

“I have a master’s degree in aeronautic engineering, Agent Coulson. Believe me when I say that it would be fucking terrible if something like that happened, not just for Tony, but half the continent, if not the _entire_ continent, and it would be terrible for _you_ , specifically, because I’d probably have killed you by then. Is that okay with you?”

“I think I got it, yeah,” Agent Coulson replies, tersely.

“Good, now, you might want to get the fuck out of the mansion before I think about all the other crap that you people have done and _then_ , get even more pissed off at you than I already am,” Rhodey says, gently.

Agent Coulson doesn’t stick around.

“So, question, how much would you bet that they wouldn’t be effectively interning me in my house if I were white?”

Rhodey shrugs. “I don’t know. If you were white, you’d probably be a bigger pain in the ass than you are right now, so, maybe you had it coming?”

Tony scowls. “Rude,” he says.

Rhodey gapes at him. “You’re not white _now_ ,” he says, slowly.

“I know. I’m just saying that I’d like to think that you wouldn’t have threatened someone with bodily harm because they wanted to intern me, if I were white too,” Tony says, haughtily.

Rhodey’s hands grip Tony’s shoulder. “Tony, babe, if you were white, you probably would’ve done something intensely stupid like a throw a fortieth birthday bash, get super drunk in your armour and put everyone in serious danger, because you would have started blowing shit up, and then, I would’ve stopped you, probably with that suit of armour in the workshop that you promised was mine, and so, it is very, very unlikely that I would actually _be_ here in order to threaten SHIELD agents with bodily harm,” he says, carefully.

“I know,” Tony says, huffing. “I just wanted some reassurance, that’s all.”

“Tony?”

“Yes, honeybear.”

“Can we please open that stupid box so that we can stop you from dying?”

Tony deflates. “You haven’t forgotten that I kept the palladium poisoning a secret from you, have you?”

“Fuck no.”

* * *

Tony and Rhodey crack open the box in the middle of the lounge. Dust floats up into the air, and Tony glowers at it, as if the heat of his glare is enough to destroy the very matter that binds the dust particles together.

“Disgusting,” he sighs.

The two of them start fishing inside. There are blueprints for the arc reactor, the big one that had been destroyed after the fight on the highway with Stane, and there are newspaper articles, a number of them. Tony’s in one of them, the one that had come out after he built the circuit board, and he’s in his father’s lap, no older than four, and he’s missing a few teeth.

“You were cute,” Rhodey comments, staring at the picture.

“I was,” Tony says, softly, his eyes not focused on himself, but his father, much younger than Tony remembers him, softer somehow. “You know, uh, before this, he used to take me down to the garage, help me take apart the cars. He taught me how to do that. It’s, uh, it’s how I learned how to speak Farsi in the first place.”

“That sounds like a nice memory,” Rhodey offers.

Tony clears his throat. “Yeah, it was, and then, I made the circuit board, and he stopped doing that with me.”

“Tony,” Rhodey says, soft and unsure.

“It’s okay. I knew opening this box would fuck with me. I wouldn’t have done it without knowing that,” Tony says, briskly.

He pulls out a number of video reels, perfectly preserved in their casings, and then, an idea occurs to him.

“What do you say about an old-fashioned movie night?”

Rhodey stares at the reels in Tony’s hands and lap. “You want to get the projector. I’ll get the vodka?”

“Sounds like a deal.”

* * *

“Are you sure you should be drinking vodka?” Rhodey asks, curiously, as Tony pours a decent helping of lemon iced tea to mix with his vodka.

“Well, I’m already dying from palladium poisoning. Getting drunk on one of those nights shouldn’t be a big deal, but then again, I’m not a doctor, and so, what do I know?” Tony says, lazily, leaning back against the couch, with a notebook propped up in his lap.

Rhodey takes a seat beside him and drapes an arm around his shoulders.

“J, dim the lights and start the projector, would you?”

The video starts crackling on the screen, and his father appears, looking more like the man that Tony remembers teaching him how to take apart cars.

“Everything is achievable through technology. Better living, robust heath-”

“I always thought he sounded like such a pompous prick,” Rhodey says, darkly.

Tony starts flicking through the notebook. He fixes his eyes on a diagram of what looks like a cube, with his father’s scribbles all around the edges.

“-and for the first time in human history, the possibility of world peace. I’m Howard Stark, and everything you’ll need for the future can be found right here. City of the Future? City of Tomorrow? City of…” His father wrestles for the words, frustration building. “I’m Howard Stark and everything you’ll need in the future can be found right here. So, from all of us at Stark Industries, I would like to personally… Tony-”

Tony looks up at the sound of his name, and there, he sees himself on the video, maybe around the age of four, peeking his head and the shock of dark hair atop his head above the model of the Expo.

Rhodey’s hand settles on the back of his neck. “Told you, cute,” he says.

“What are you doing here?” Howard demands on the screen.

Tony’s belly swoops, as if he’s still that child, as if it hasn’t been almost twenty years since his father died, as if his father is standing right here, right in front of him, that permanent scowl etched on his face, the disappointed, disgusted tone he would have taken on when he was talking to Tony.

Everything that Tony did was always so wrong, so unpardonable.

“What is that?”

Even through the grainy quality of the video, Tony can see one of the fake buildings clutched in his mini-me’s dark, pudgy hand.

There’s a defiant look on his face, though, and Tony wonders if it’s the pinnacle of narcissism to be proud of yourself in such a way.

“Put that back,” Howard barks at him. “Put it back where you got it from.”

“Asshole,” Rhodey mutters under his breath, the skin around his eyes pulled tight.

“Where’s your mother? Maria?” Howard calls out to his mother who can’t be seen from the perspective of the camera.

It’s not his mother who comes to collect him but one of the crew, who sweeps Tony up into his arms.

“Go on. Go, go, go, go,” Howard urges, dismissively.

“All right,” the cameraman says, awkwardly, out of sight, “I think we got…”

“I’ll… I’ll…I’ll come in and…”

The video crackles again and ends.

“Are you waiting on me?” the cameraman says.

Howard, on the screen, drinks from a full glass of whiskey.

Tony drinks more of his vodka, made uncomfortable by even the hint of comparison.

The video changes again.

“So, from all of us at Stark Industries, I’d like to personally show you my ass.”

Both Tony and Rhodey snort.

“I’d like… I can’t… This is… I can’t… We have this, don’t we? This is a ridiculous way… Everything-”

Tony finishes the notebook, all that is left being blank pages, blank pages that his father never got the chance to fill.

His belly swoops as he realises that his father most likely died before he could fill them.

“-is achievable through technology.”

Tony’s getting really fucking sick of him saying that.

He throws the book to one side and takes another gulp of his drink, vodka burning through his throat.

“Tony.”

Tony’s hands still.

He doesn’t dare look up.

“You’re too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you.”

His lungs squeeze too tight.

“I built this for _you_. And someday, you’ll realise that it represents a whole lot more than just people’s inventions. It represents my life’s work. This is the key to the future.”

Tony musters up the bravery from somewhere inside him, and he looks up, looks up at his father, his face softer than Tony can ever remember it being.

“I’m limited by the technology of my time, but one day, you’ll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world. What is and always will be my greatest creation is _you_.”

The film ends, and the air is thick with a sort of shuddering stillness, both men too afraid to do anything, let alone breathe.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, his voice gentle.

The space that his body occupies gets colder, smaller, like he’s underwater, and he can’t breathe anymore.

“Shit, Tony,” Rhodey hisses, and he’s rolling off the couch and kneeling in front of him, his elbows propped up on Tony’s thighs.

Rhodey curls a hand around the nape of Tony’s neck, bringing him forward to press their brows together.

“It’s okay, just breathe, just breathe,” he says, gently, over and over again, and it takes Tony a few moments before he’s able to breathe in tandem, his chest hurting.

“It’s okay,” Rhodey repeats.

“I know, I’m just…” Tony runs his tongue over his lower lip. “He said that, he said _that_ , knowing that I’d never be able to hear him say it until he died, and hell, it’s been twenty fucking years.” He drags a hand over his face. “I hate him,” he says, woodenly. “I hate him, I hate him so fucking much, and I’m not allowed to hate him because he’s dead, but I still hate him.”

“You’re allowed to hate him, if that’s what you want to do,” Rhodey tells him, softly.

“He’s my father,” Tony says, gruffly. “He never had a kind word for me. He didn’t like me. He didn’t love me, and here he is, on a fucking video, claiming that I’m his greatest creation, that I’m going to change the world. For fuck’s sake, he would have swallowed his own tongue, shot himself in the fucking stomach before he’d have ever said any of that to my face when he was alive.”

“Maybe he was only brave enough to say it in a video.” Rhodey rubs his hand over his face. “Although, now that I’m saying that, I realise how fucked up it is that he wouldn’t have been able to say it to your face. It shouldn’t have been that hard.”

“You’re right. It shouldn’t have been that hard,” Tony says, heavily, “and did you hear that shit about me being his greatest creation? That is peak Howard Stark, Rhodey. Laying claim to something he would have tried his fucking hardest to destroy if he’d had the chance.”

“You know it’s bullshit. That’s the important thing.”

“Is it really the important thing?” Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. “You heard him, not Howard, I mean, but Fury. You heard him, and the way that he talked about my dad, it’s the way that _everyone_ talks about my dad, like he was someone to be lionised, that he was someone great and good, when he was only those things to people who weren’t his wife and son. He was a prick, and no one will ever know, no one will ever believe him, and the idea that my life, my continued existence is dependent on him, on something that people kept from me, that _he_ kept from me, it fucking _galls_ , Rhodey. The idea that I have to rely on him, of all people, to keep him alive.”

“Okay, listen to me,” Rhodey says, full of resolve, “ _listen to me_.”

Tony fixes his eyes on Rhodey.

“I know, I know this sucks. I know he was a prick. I know he was abusive. I know he was an awful person, and I know no one will believe you if you tell them who Howard Stark really was, but I believe you, Tony. I believed you the first time you told me. I have believed you all these years, and I hate the man for how he treated you. Take this from him.”

“What?”

“Take it from him. If there is something in his research, in that box, hell, even in that video, take it from him, fix yourself, and _live_. It is the greatest fuck you that you possibly could have given him. You will fix yourself using the thing that he couldn’t figure out, and you will _live_. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t care about Howard; I don’t care about SHIELD; I care about you living past the next three weeks. I care about spending the next fifty years with you. I care about marrying you when there’s marriage equality in all fifty states. I care about adopting football teams full of kids with you. I want that. I don’t even care about Iron Man, not really. I just want _you_. So, we’re going to watch this video again; we’re going to go through all of this shit in this box, and we’re going to find the thing that fixes the palladium poisoning, whatever that might be. I don’t care if we have to make a deal with a leprechaun for the cure, but we’re going to do it. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and we’re going to make sure that you’re here for that. You got me?”

Tony stares at him, the person he loves most in the world, and then, finally he nods.

If he has to take this from his father, use up whatever last bit of goodwill the man had thought to give him after all the shit that he’d done to him instead, if this is all his father is good for and this is the last _fuck you_ that Tony can give him, do the thing that his father was never capable of, prove to him, once and for all, that he was better than his father and he will always be better than Howard Stark, he’ll do that, he’ll do anything, if it means that he can spend the next fifty years with James Rhodes.

“Okay,” Tony replies, his stomach lurching. “Okay, let’s watch the stupid video again.”

It’s in that second viewing that Tony spots it.

At the beginning of the video, the camera slowly pans over the model, and that’s when Tony sees it.

He leans forward, almost toppling off the couch.

“JARVIS, pause,” he instructs.

“What, what is it?” Rhodey asks, curiously.

Tony covers one of his eyes, and yes, that is exactly what he thought it was.

He climbs to his feet.

“JARVIS, do we have a copy of the 1974 Stark Expo model on file?” he asks briskly.

“Yes, sir, it was on the server when you first decided to set things in motion for another Stark Expo,” JARVIS answers promptly.

“Could you kindly Vac-U-Form a digital wire frame? I need a manipulatable projection.”

It appears in front of him, in the middle of the lounge, on its side, so that Tony can see the full length of the model.

“How many buildings are there?”

“Am I to include the Belgian waffle stands?” JARVIS asks, dryly.

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. “I was being rhetorical. Just show me.”

The model begins to spin, and Tony stops it when he has what he wants in full view, the section around the globe tower.

“What does that look like to you?” he says more to himself than anything.

“An atom,” Rhodey answers, promptly, from behind him.

Tony looks over his shoulder, and Rhodey simply lifts an eyebrow.

“Hey, I went to MIT too, you know?”

“I know; it just does a lot of naughty things to me when you talk science, platypus,” Tony retorts, flashing him a roguish grin. “So, if it is an atom, then, the nucleus would be right _here­_ -” He points straight to the centre. “Highlight the unisphere. Lose the footpaths. Get rid of them.”

Tony starts batting them away himself.

“What are you trying to do, Tony?” Rhodey asks, curiously.

“I’m discovering, actually,” he closes his eyes, “I’m _rediscovering_ a new element. Lose the landscaping, the shrubbery, the trees.” Tony flicks them away. “Parking lots, exits, entrances.”

Tony considers it.

“Structure the protons and the neutrons using the pavilions as a framework.”

And in his hand sits a shiny nucleus of an element, with protons and neutrons, and then, he throws it up, expands it so that it practically fills the lounge. He turns on his feet, his heart pounding erratically in his ribcage, his pulse knocked off-kilter.

“Huh,” Tony stares at it, dragging in air through his teeth.

“Is that, is that a new element?” Rhodey says, carefully.

“I think it is.”

There’s a pressure around his chest, like vices, and he can hear the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, softly, and Tony turns around to see a soft look in Rhodey’s eyes, which takes him back to their MIT years and a lack of functioning heating and burying under covers with him, so they could keep warm.

Tony shifts on his feet, uncomfortably. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re standing in stars,” Rhodey retorts. “It’s kind of a mesmerising image.”

“Well, technically, they’re not stars; they’re subatomic particles-”

“Tony,” Rhodey grinds out.

Tony falls silent.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes?”

Rhodey doesn’t take his eyes off Tony. “Is this element a viable replacement for the palladium?”

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes,” JARVIS’ voice is threaded with blatant satisfaction.

A smile curls Rhodey’s lips, and time slows and stretches, especially as Rhodey pads towards him, batting away the hologram, which hovers in a corner of the lounge. Rhodey stops in front of him; his hand curls around the nape of Tony’s neck, and he presses his brow against Tony’s.

“You’re going to live,” Rhodey says, his voice rumbling like a landslide.

Tony’s throat flexes. “Technically, it’s impossible to synthesise.”

“Are you going to do anything about that?”

Tony hesitates. “Well, I mean, there’d be a need for a major remodel, but I don’t see why I couldn’t-”

Rhodey’s mouth covers his with bruising force, and when Tony pulls back with the need to breathe, he can feel his mouth swollen and tingling.

“Does this mean that you’ve forgiven me for keeping the palladium poisoning from you a secret?” he asks, hopefully.

“No,” Rhodey drags out. “But do you promise to never keep things like this from me again?”

Tony’s hands fall to Rhodey’s shoulders, gripping them tightly. “Rhodey, I promise I’ll never keep anything like this from you again,” he says, earnestly.

Rhodey considers him for a moment. “You’re not just saying that to get me to forgive you, are you?”

“Rhodey,” Tony sighs. “Rhodey, no. I’m sorry, I really am. I should never have kept this from you. You’re right. We’re supposed to be partners. We’re supposed to be in this together. We’re supposed to share our lives with each other, and I didn’t do that. I failed us, and I kept you out in the cold, because I was scared, because I didn’t want you to resent me, because I wanted to be happy with you these last few weeks rather than wallowing in my fear and my uncertainty about what was going to happen to me when my blood toxicity became 100%. I’m sorry. You deserved better than to find out after I’d made my will, or after I’d lost all my faculties or ended up in an artificial coma because I couldn’t live without dying over and over again and coming back each of those times. You deserved better, and I should have told you the truth as soon as I started having symptoms. It was unfair to you, unfair to our relationship, and I’m so fucking sorry.”

Rhodey is silent for a moment. “Wow, I think that’s the best apology you’ve ever given me. I didn’t even think you were capable of apologising to me like that.”


	8. viii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "tight shirts" square (N4) of the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.
> 
> Title: i die with variety  
> Collaborator Name: Simi  
> Card Number: 4066  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27432925/chapters/70598163  
> Square Filled: R2 - Tony Stark/Natasha Romanoff  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Tony/Rhodey  
> Rating: Explicit  
> Major Tags: major character death, immortality in a way but it will end at some time, explicit sexual content.  
> Warnings for this Chapter: deaths in various, graphic circumstances, violence, alcohol poisoning, alcohol-related death, domestic violence.  
> Summary: The first time that Tony dies, he is four and he’s building his very first circuit board from scratch. He’s connecting the finished product to the multimeter to check the voltage, the current and resistance, when a lead slips, a shock ricochets up through his spine, and he sees black.  
> He’s on his back, when his eyes flutter open, and he’s staring up at the ceiling. He gets up, frowning, rubbing at his eyes, and then, he sees the frayed wire on the end of the multimeter.  
> Huh, he thinks and moves on almost immediately.  
> Word Count: 4042

Tony huffs and throws his hands up in the air. “If you’re just going to make fun of me-”

Rhodey covers his mouth with his own again, and Tony moans into the kiss, throwing his arms around his shoulders.

“Are we going to have life-affirming sex now?” Tony asks, breathlessly.

Rhodey pauses. “Should we wait until we’ve actually affirmed your life for that?”

Tony mulls it over. “You may have a point; we don’t want to jinx ourselves at such a critical stage.” He bites his lip. “We could have make-up sex?” he offers.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Rhodey says, flush with emotion.

Tony lurches forward and crushes his lips to Rhodey’s, his hand curling around the nape of his neck. Rhodey’s hands surround Tony’s hips, dragging their bodies together, until there is no part of Tony and Rhodey’s bodies that aren’t touching.

Tony pushes him down onto the couch and crawls into his lap, his lips never leaving Rhodey’s. First to go is the very tight shirt that he’s wearing, stretched deliciously across his broad shoulders and lean muscles, and then, Rhodey’s, and then, he’s unbuckling Rhodey’s belt from his jeans and sliding the zipper down. He shoves his hand past the waistband of Rhodey’s briefs and curls his hand around Rhodey’s cock.

Rhodey grunts and thrusts into his hand, his cock swelling up quickly between Tony’s fingers.

“How’s that?” Tony murmurs against his mouth.

“You’re evil. Do we even have lube here?”

“JARVIS?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but alas, your lounge is not one of the places where you decided to stash away your tools for sexual intercourse.”

“Okay, I maintain that there is still something creepy about you asking an AI that is also your child about lube,” Rhodey mutters.

“Don’t apply human standards to my relationship with my AI.” Tony pauses. “Okay, that doesn’t sound right either. In future, JARVIS, maybe refuse to answer any questions about sexual intercourse.”

“Happily done, sir.”

“But the damage is done, of course, and there is no lube. So, we have a couple of options. We do full, penetrative sex, but you wait a little so I can get used to your cock in my ass. Or we do handjobs. Or I give you a blowjob. Or there’s always dry humping. Or a mix of all of those things, but if we’re doing full, penetrative sex, I think we need to stick to accuracy here and note the fact that neither of us are up for going for more than one orgasm.”

“Tony,” Rhodey groans, letting his head tip over the back of the couch. “Can you just make a decision?”

“Well, I think I’m going to give you a blowjob, and then, if we manage to synthesise this element, you are going to make it up to me.”

Rhodey’s eyes are dark, when Tony squirms his way down the length of Rhodey’s body, until he’s on his knees in front of the couch. He pulls down the waistband of Rhodey’s briefs, so that he can pull his cock out. It smacks against Rhodey’s belly, leaving a streak of pre-come. Tony palms his lover’s cock, letting out a little sigh of air over the head, and then, he licks it, like it’s a lollipop.

“Shit,” Rhodey hisses, and then, his hand curls into Tony’s hair, tugging at the strands.

Tony closes his mouth around Rhodey’s cock, just the head, while his hand curls into a fist and starts sliding up and down the base and shaft. He swipes his tongue over the head of Rhodey’s cock, before he retracts his hand, and lets his mouth swallow him down to the base.

“Fuck!” Rhodey cries out.

Tony pumps his cock in firm strokes, while his tongue laps slowly at the head, and then, his tongue traces the vein beneath the head.

“If I pull at your hair, are you going to hate me for it?” Rhodey asks, breathlessly.

Tony pulls off Rhodey’s cock with a wet pop and flashes him a grin. “Nope, not at all.”

“Okay, good.” Rhodey’s hands fist in Tony’s hair, pulling at the strands, sending pinpricks of pain down Tony’s spine and settling in his cock, which swells in his sweatpants.

He nuzzles at the join of Rhodey’s thigh, just shy of his cock, and then, he licks a long, lazy stripe up the underside of his cock. Rhodey rocks his hips, and then, he’s practically fucking Tony’s face, sending his cock deeper into Tony’s mouth, almost down his throat. The muscles of Tony’s throat work around Rhodey’s cock, and Rhodey grunts, shifting on the couch, and his hands tighten in Tony’s hair, as if he wants to push Tony’s head down further.

Tony runs his tongue teasingly along the seam of his cock, giving his balls a good, hard tug, and then, Rhodey is coming with a yelp and then, a dark groan that makes Tony burn on the inside and outside. Rhodey’s cock spills thick and hot in Tony’s mouth, and he swallows as much of it as he can. When he pulls back, a streak of come hits his cheek, his nose, his swollen bottom lip, sliding down his face in a filthy, damp line.

Rhodey settles back against the couch, breathing hard. “Jesus Christ,” he manages to say.

Tony grins and fishes out his shirt, wiping his face as best as he can.

“Okay, this is not enough,” he muses after a moment. “I’m going to wash my face, and then, when I get back, we’re going to do a major remodel and hopefully, when we’re done, I’m actually going to live past the next week or so.”

* * *

Rhodey baulks when Tony returns to the lounge, carrying a sledgehammer and loops of wire slung over his shoulder.

“Okay, I’m just going to take that,” Rhodey says, carefully, moving the sledgehammer out of Tony’s hand and into his own.

Tony scowls at him. “Okay, that’s not fair. I know how to use a sledgehammer, Rhodey. You just point and sledgehammer.”

“I’m just going to keep an eye on it,” Rhodey soothes. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Tony continues scowling but he drops the wire down onto the ground.

Rhodey stares at it. “You know, it always surprises me that you seem to have everything down in your workshop. It’s like the Room of Requirement.”

Tony huffs. “Okay, it’s better than the Room of Requirement, only because it’s not based on logical fallacies such as magic,” he says the word in a disgusted manner.

Rhodey rolls his eyes. “You sound like such a Muggle.”

Tony holds a hand to his heart. “That is so mean. I’m the love of your life, honeybear.”

“You’re a pain in my ass, that’s what you are,” Rhodey mutters under his breath.

“Just… help me synthesise the element.”

Between the two of them, they start smashing walls in with the sledgehammer, using a jackhammer to gouge holes through the floor, so that he can drop the wiring through. Rhodey carries piping over his shoulder, so that Tony can assemble the structure for the particle accelerator in his workshop, after he and DUM-E and U and BUTTERFINGERS have sufficiently cleared the space.

Agent Coulson enters the workshop, once Tony and Rhodey have fixed the piping together.

“How’s it going?” he says, casually.

“Oh, yeah, I mean, it’s just my life on the line, so it’s pretty good,” Tony retorts.

Agent Coulson starts rifling through the workshop and out of his father’s box, he pulls out a plastic Captain America shield.

Tony’s face curdles with disgust at the sight.

“What’s this doing here?”

Rhodey smacks Tony on the shoulder. “That’s it,” he hisses.

Tony looks at the shield again. “Oh, yeah, you’re right, it is. Bring that to me,” he orders, making grabby hands for it.

“You know what this is?”

“Yeah, it’s a symbol of my abusive childhood angst,” Tony mutters under his breath, “and really not the thing I need right now to save my life. But right now, I will stomach it if it makes this work. Lift the coil.”

Agent Coulson rolls his eyes and hooks his arms under the piping, lifting it up so that Tony can slide the plastic shield underneath it.

“Come on, Coulson, put your knees into it,” Tony snaps.

Finally, he manages to shove the entirety of the plastic shield under the piping.

“Now, you can drop it. Drop it!”

The shield is now in position and the coil straight.

Tony smiles, satisfied. “Perfectly level.” He scowls at Agent Coulson. “I’m busy. What do you want?”

“Nothing. Goodbye,” Coulson says in the same breath. “I’ve been reassigned. Director Fury wants me in New Mexico.”

“Fantastic. Land of Enchantment,” Tony drawls.

“So, I’m told.”

“Is it more secret spy stuff?” Rhodey asks, curiously.

Coulson shrugs. “Something like that. Good luck.”

Tony rolls his eyes, long-sufferingly, and then, Rhodey aims the point of his elbow into Tony’s side, making him grunt.

“Fine, fine, thank you,” Tony stresses and shakes his hand.

“We need you.”

“Oh, much more than you know.”

Agent Coulson lifts an eyebrow. “Not that much.” He turns to Rhodey and hesitates a little before offering his hand. “Colonel Rhodes.”

“Agent Coulson,” Rhodey says, politely.

“I apologise if I seemed… indifferent earlier.”

“You were indifferent,” Rhodey corrects, sternly, “but considering that you’re leaving now, I guess I should forgive you.”

Agent Coulson quickly realises that he’s not going to get much more from Rhodey and inclines his head in response to Rhodey’s words.

“Good luck,” he says, tersely, and then, he’s leaving the workshop.

“Okay, so, shall we?” Tony asks, gesturing wildly to the particle accelerator.

“Am I allowed to express my awe at you having built an actual particle accelerator out of really ordinary items in your fucking workshop?” Rhodey asks, running his hand over the top of it.

“You are absolutely allowed to express your awe, and frankly, I would really like it if you took the fact that I built a particle accelerator out of really ordinary items in my fucking workshop when it comes to the life-affirming sex that we’re going to have later, after you know, I cure the incurable poisoning of my blood.”

Rhodey presses a smacking kiss to the side of his head. “Absolutely, baby.”

Tony turns back to the accelerator.

“Initialising prismatic accelerator.”

Tony starts to turn the wheel on top of the accelerator. The more he turns, the more effort he expends in maintaining the accelerator.

“Approaching maximum power.”

At some point, his hands can’t push the wheel anymore, and he uses a wrench to push it further. The beam stretches out, moves along the wall, leaving thin, neat gouges, and then, it almost hits the bots, which causes them to screech at Tony.

“I’m sorry!” he shouts back. “I’m trying to save my life over here.”

The bots protest.

“I wasn’t _aiming_ for you. Who do you think I am exactly?”

Tony winces when the bots’ pitch reaches eardrum-splitting levels.

“Look, this is the only way that I can synthesise the element! What more do you want from me here? I apologised-”

“Oh, my God, would you please shut the fuck up?” Rhodey snaps, and everything goes silent, Tony and the bots, and all anyone can hear is the distant thrum of the particle accelerator.

Tony turns to his partner with an offended look on his face. “Honeybear,” he says, sternly, “you know we don’t swear in front of the children.”

Rhodey pinches the bridge of his nose. “For fuck’s sake,” he mutters under his breath, and then, he angles his entire body to face the bots. “Okay, you listen to me, we don’t say words like that.”

BUTTERFINGERS, a total daddy’s girl, rolls towards him, bleating questioning sounds.

Rhodey sighs and smooths a hand over her strut. “Because they’re adult words, honey, and you’re still a baby.”

BUTTERFINGERS protests.

“Yeah, well, when you can get a licence to drive and it’s legal for you to get married, then, we can talk about you using profanity, but until then, I’m sorry, baby, but those are words that only Daddy and Appa can use.”

BUTTERFINGERS pouts, but Rhodey holds strong, and then, she returns to whatever she was doing before Tony had so stupidly pissed her and her brothers off.

Rhodey turns to Tony. “Happy?”

“Yes, you’re such a good daddy, honeybear.”

“Never say that again,” Rhodey tells him.

Tony grins and turns back to the particle accelerator.

Finally, the beam concentrates on the metal triangle he has propped upon on a table, and then, the triangle glows blue, glows bright, so bright that it hurts Tony’s eyes, makes them sting, and there are tears burning, streaming in rivulets down his face, and then, it stops.

He lets go of the wheel.

“Huh, that was easy.”

“That was not fucking easy,” Rhodey mutters under his breath.

Tony walks around the accelerator, removing the triangle from its perch with a pair of pliers.

“Congratulations, sir,” JARVIS says, warmly. “You have created a new element.”

He uses the pliers to place the triangle into the arc reactor. He cups it in his hands, staring down at it.

“Sir, the reactor has accepted the modified core. I will begin running diagnostics.”

Tony runs his thumb over the face of the reactor, and then, his lips turn up at the edges.

“Fuck that.” He lifts his eyes to meet Rhodey’s. “I’m sorry. I know I should do the smart thing, let JARVIS run his tests, but you know me. I’m always reckless.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “Tony, come on, we’re talking a couple of days-”

“I’ve put you through too much to waste any more time. I just want this done, Rhodey. I want to wake up tomorrow morning, knowing that my time here on this Earth is limited, that one day, I’m going to lose function of my eyes and my ears and my tongue and my arms and legs. I don’t want that. I don’t want that fear anymore, and I… I’d like to think that after everything, this is going to work. I need you to trust me one more time.”

Rhodey stares at him for a moment, and then, his shoulders deflate. “Okay, okay.”

Tony’s heart swells to the point of bursting in his chest, just out of love for this man, and he hates himself for all the grief he puts Rhodey through.

Tony rolls up the hem of his shirt, baring the arc reactor currently in his chest. He removes it and slides the new one with the new core inside.

“You want to run some tests, J, run them.”

“We are unclear as to the effects,” JARVIS protests.

“Yeah, I got it,” he says, frustrated, as the reactor gains power, fills his chest with something that feels like fire, and there are tears in his eyes. “That tastes like coconut,” he gasps, “and metal.”

The fire spreads everywhere, into his eyes and his ears and his throat and his hands and his feet, and it’s burning him everywhere, giving him the sense that he’s about to melt within the confines of his body and emerge as some mystical, mythical creature like a dragon.

“Oh, wow, _yeah_!”

* * *

When Tony wakes up, he’s flat on his back in the middle of the destroyed workshop and he’s staring up at the ceiling. There’s a warm hand in his, and he twists his head, seeing Rhodey on his knees, at his hip.

“Hey,” he rasps.

Rhodey’s throat flexes, and the skin around his eyes are pulled tight. “Hey.”

“Did I-”

“No, you didn’t. You just passed out,” Rhodey reassures.

Tony rises to his feet, curls a hand around the nape of Rhodey’s neck and drags him in, slanting his mouth over Rhodey’s so that he can slide his tongue inside.

“I just passed out,” he says, a little giddy with it. “JARVIS?”

“The reactor is functional, sir. The new element seems to be working as per our initial conclusions.”

The relief that floods Tony’s body is so overwhelming that he starts crying, his head bowing over his chest.

“Oh, Tony, Tony,” Rhodey says, his voice pained, and then, his arms are surrounding Tony’s body.

He wraps his arms around Rhodey’s shoulders, fits his face against the hollow of Rhodey’s throat, where he can feel his pulse thumping in his throat. He’s halfway in Rhodey’s lap, and the tears are damp against his cheek, so when Rhodey pulls back, and kisses them away, kisses his eyes and the curve of his cheekbone and then, his mouth, so softly that Tony thinks he might cry overwhelmed with it all.

“I’m alive,” he gasps.

Rhodey rubs circles on his back. “You’re alive.”

“The element worked.”

Rhodey nods. “I tested your blood while you were out cold; the toxicity in your blood is going down. I think you’re going to need some rest for a couple of days, but you should be good as new very soon,” he says, and Rhodey’s voice sounds exceedingly thick.

Tony cups his face in his hand, rests his brow against Rhodey’s. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so fucking sorry, Rhodey. I put you through so much because I was scared and insecure and selfish, and that wasn’t fair. I should never have done that you, and I’m so fucking sorry. I should have just told you the truth right from the beginning. You deserved that.”

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. I’m here, it’s done, you’re fine, and everything’s going to be fine. _We’re going to be fine_. I love you, and I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

Tony nods against his forehead and reaches up to kiss him on the forehead.

“We should have that life-affirming sex, shouldn’t we?” Tony rasps, his mouth inches away from Rhodey’s.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Sir?”

Tony bites back a groan. “JARVIS, I know that you don’t have eyes per se, but you do have cameras, and surely, you can see that we’re in the middle of something.”

“Yes, sir, I can see that,” JARVIS sounds belligerent, “but there is a situation that I believe you will be interested in.”

A screen pops out of nowhere, showing him video feed from a local news network, where it appears the Stark Expo is going out of control.

“What the fuck is happening over there?” Tony demands, clambering to his feet and pulling Rhodey up along with him.

“It appears that Justin Hammer presented at the Stark Expo tonight, and his presentation featured a number of drones that have been hacked by an outside source and are now attacking the various attendees of the Expo.”

Tony makes his way to the armour.

“Do we have any information about who’s hacking the drones?”

“I have tracked the signature, although the source is an extremely proficient hacker in their own right, and it appears that the identity of the hacker is a man named Ivan Vanko.”

The name is familiar to Tony, and he bites back a groan.

“Of course, of course this would be Howard’s fault,” he mutters in his breath.

He works his way into the armour, and once he’s finished adjusting the various plates and gauntlets around his body, he stares at Rhodey.

“Aren’t you coming?” he says, confused.

“Yeah, I’ll follow you in the car-”

“No, I meant,” Tony gestures to the silver armour in one of the showcases. “I meant, aren’t you coming in the armour.”

Rhodey stares at the armour in question for a moment. “You’re sure,” he says, uncertainly.

“Rhodey,” Tony’s voice is soft, “I made it for you. It’s yours. Of course I’m sure.”

Rhodey nods to himself once, and then, his expression becomes steel.

* * *

In the end, it’s an absolute shit-fight.

When Tony and Rhodey fly to the Stark Expo, all they can hear are the screams. The drones are already destroying everything in sight, and below, Tony can see one of the drones approach a little boy wearing an Iron Man mask, raising a fake gauntlet on his right hand, and Tony doesn’t think, doesn’t breath, lurching downwards in a burst of speed that makes his heart pound in his ribcage, and he lands right in front of the little boy, shooting the drone in the face before it can even make the motion to kill the little boy.

Once the drone is done away with, he looks down at the little boy.

“Nice work, kid,” he says, pride brimming his voice, and then, he throws himself into the air.

The drones are hot on his heels, and in the darkness, he can see the wink of light that is Rhodey fighting off his own battalion.

“How are we doing, JARVIS?”

“Remote reboot unsuccessful.”

“Tony, you got multiples coming in on you.”

Tony curses under his breath. “Let’s get this away from the Expo.”

He flies through the globe structure, and then, when he looks over his shoulder, the drones that are following him hit the metal structure that destroys them.

He lands in a pond, feet first, and he looks around, just as Rhodey joins him.

“Tony?”

Tony frowns. “Who is this?”

“I’m sorry; we only met the one time at your mansion. My name is Natasha Romanoff. I’m an agent of SHIELD.”

“How did you get access to this feed?”

“I asked your AI politely, put my case to him, and he let me through,” she says, simply.

“Okay, why are you getting in contact with me.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’ve rebooted the drones. You won’t see a problem with them anymore.”

“Vanko?”

Agent Romanoff sounds apologetic. “I’m sorry, by the time that I got here, he was already gone.”

Tony grits his teeth. “Okay, okay, thank you, Agent Romanoff.”

“Well done on the new chest piece. I am reading significant higher output and your vitals all look promising.”

“Yes, for the moment, I’m not dying. Thank you.”

“What do you mean you’re not dying?”

Tony winces when Pepper’s voice enters the feed, shrilly.

Rhodey stares at him. “Sorry, babe, you’re dead meat.”

“Did you just say you’re dying?” Pepper demands.

Tony feigns confusion. “Is that you, Pepper? No, I’m not. Not anymore,” he says, carefully.

“What’s going on?”

“I was going to tell you,” he soothes. “I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“You were going to tell me that you really were dying?” Pepper asks, incredulously.

“Look, there was never a good time-”

“Hey, hey. Save it for the honeymoon,” Romanoff retorts.

Tony scowls, and Rhodey scowls, and he can practically hear the scowl coming from Pepper.

“Hey, if anyone’s going on a honeymoon, it’s Tony and me.” Rhodey pauses. “Actually, fuck it, I can’t think of a better time to do this. Tony, marry me.”

Tony stares at him. “What?”

“Marry me. I’ve loved you for twenty years. _Marry me_.”

Tony gapes at him.

“Did you get hit on the head?” he asks, hesitantly.

Rhodey rolls his eyes. “No, I didn’t. I just think we shouldn’t waste any more time. I’m alive, you’re alive, and when same-sex marriage in this state is legal, let’s get fucking married.”

“You’re… high on adrenaline and not thinking things through.”

“Is that a no?”

“No, it’s an _are you sure you know what you’re doing?_ ”

“Tony, if you think that I haven’t thought about marrying you all of these years, then, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Tony stares at him. “What about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?”

“We’ll keep it a secret, just like we’ve been keeping our relationship up until now a secret. Besides, there’s, uh, there’s a recent development there. The House of Representatives, a couple of days ago, approved the Murphy amendment to the National Defence Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2011. It provides for repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and creates a process for lifting the policy, including a DOD study and certification by key officials that the change in policy isn’t going to harm military readiness followed by a waiting period of sixty days.”

Tony’s throat flexes. “I…”

Rhodey’s eyes are soft. “Marry me, Tony.”


	9. ix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "I'd Kill For You" square for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

Agent Romanoff clears her throat over the comms. “I hate to break this exceedingly romantic, battle-time proposal, and by the way, if my opinion is at all relevant in all of this, I really hope that you say yes, Tony, but you got incoming. Looks like the fight’s coming to you.”

Tony’s mind snaps to attention. “Great,” he says, dryly. “Pepper?”

“Are you okay now?” Pepper asks, sullenly.

“I am fine; please don’t be mad. I will formally apologise-”

“I _am_ mad!”

“-when I’m not fending off a Hammeroid attack,” Tony stresses.

He can practically hear Pepper’s scowl over the comms.

“Fine,” she grumbles. “By the way, I think you should say yes, but only if I can be your maid of honour.”

Tony’s brow knits together. “Wait, why am I the bride in this?”

“Are you saying that you bottom?” Pepper asks, cheekily.

“Fuck off,” Tony mutters under his breath.

“Wait, is this why you made me CEO-”

And then, the comms shut off.

Tony stares at Rhodey, and the silence is suffocating, making it hard for him to breathe or think.

“You want to marry me?” he asks, softly.

“I just went through the worst week of my life because I thought that the man I love was going to die, and this time, he wouldn’t come back to life. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’d tell you that I want to spend the rest of _your_ life with you, but I don’t know if I’m actually going to live long enough for that.”

Tony snorts. “Are you kidding me? With the way I drink?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of your immortal tattoo thing,” Rhodey retorts.

Tony’s lower lip is trembling. “You really want to marry me?”

“Yeah, Tony, I do.”

“Okay.”

Rhodey’s eyes widen. “Okay, uh, cool, then.”

“A part of you wasn’t expecting me to say yes, right?” Tony prods.

Rhodey shrugs. “I mean, there was adrenaline involved.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to get married?” Tony says, hesitantly.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do, what he’ll feel like, if Rhodey takes it back, if he makes it seem as though it was just a thought he was mulling over.

“No, I do. I just… I don’t know, I don’t know if you thought that it was a stupid idea, or something,” Rhodey says, floundering for the words. “I do want to marry you, though; I just think there are a couple of logistical issues that we need to sort out first.”

Tony nods, blankly. “They’re coming in hot, any second. What’s the play?”

Rhodey’s shoulders deflate. “Well, we want to take the high ground, okay? So let’s put the biggest gun up on that ridge.”

Tony nods and starts moving towards the cliffside. “Got you. Where do you want to be?”

And then, he stops, as he realises that Rhodey is also moving alongside him.

“Where are _you_ going?” Rhodey asks, confused.

“What’re you talking about?”

“I meant me,” Rhodey says, slowly.

“You _have_ a big gun. You are not _the_ big gun,” Tony clarifies.

Rhodey smiles, smug and self-satisfied. “Tony, don’t be jealous.”

Tony sniffs, haughtily. “I just thought, since you like all the bells and whistles-”

“Yeah. It’s called being a badass.”

Tony closes his eyes. “Fine. All right. You go up to. I’ll draw them in.”

“Don’t stay down here. This is the worst place to be,” Rhodey protests.

“Okay, you got a spot. Where’s mine?”

“It’s the kill box, Tony,” Rhodey stresses. “Okay? This is where you go to die.”

Before they can move, the drones drop into the park, surrounding them, and then, Tony’s helmet goes down, and they’re shooting at the drones, back to back, moving in a seamless, well-oiled manner, as if they’ve been doing this for years.

“See that?” Tony says, cockily, as one of his gauntlet blasts shatters one of the drones to pieces.

“Yeah, yeah, nice,” Rhodey grumbles.

But there are too many of them for both Tony and Rhodey to keep up with just gauntlet blasts and firepower, and then, Tony has the idea.

“Rhodey? Get down,” he instructs.

Rhodey drops on command, and a laser climbs out of his gauntlet, red as fire, and slices all of the drones in half, along with all of the trees in the area.

“Wow, I’m pretty sure Wildlife Services is going to kill me,” Tony mutters.

Rhodey observes the mechanical carnage. “Wow. I think you should lead with that next time.”

Tony bangs the side of his fist over his helm. “Yeah, sorry, boss. I can only use it once. It’s a one-off.”

The comm crackles, and it’s Agent Romanoff on the other side.

“Heads up. You got one more drone incoming. This one looks different. The repulsor signature is significantly higher.”

And then, someone lands in the middle of the park. He’s older than Tony, by at least a decade or so, and he’s practically topless, just in a pair of work pants, but what astounds Tony is the gadget on his chest, which looks like a miniaturised arc reactor, smack-dab in the middle of his chest, without the added complication of it actually going _inside_ like the one in Tony’s chest, and there are wires, branching out from the arc reactor, going down all the way to his fingers, upon which they erupt into a number of tails, like a cat o’ nine tails.

“Who the fuck is this?” Rhodey mutters under his breath.

“I presume you’re Ivan Vanko?” Tony calls out.

Vanko smiles, showing a line of yellow teeth. “In the flesh.”

“You attacked Monaco,” Tony says, carefully. “I saw the videos. Pretty decent tech. Cycles per second were a little low. You could have doubled up your rotations. You focused the repulsor energy through ionised plasma channels. It’s effective. Not very efficient. But it’s a passable knock-off.” He surveys him. “I don’t get it. With a little fine tuning, you could have made a solid pay check. You could have sold it to North Korea, China, Iran, or gone onto the black market. You look like you got friends in low places.”

Vanko considers him. “I went to Monaco to kill you, but you were not there.”

“Yeah, I had some health issues,” Tony drawls.

Vanko shakes his head. “You come from a family of thieves and butchers. And now, like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your own history. And you forget all the lives the Stark family has destroyed.”

“I know what my father did to yours, and I am sorry if your father treated you like shit because he didn’t have a good place to actually expend his anger, but I’m not going to stand here and take the blame for something that happened when I was practically a toddler,” Tony says, coldly. “And you want to talk about thieves and butchers? What you did in Monaco, what makes you better than what you claim my father did to yours? Your father wanted to use the arc reactor to make himself rich-”

“And what, your father had altruistic intentions?” Vanko demands, his voice heavily accented. “My father is the reason you are alive.”

Tony’s voice sharpens around the edges. “ _I_ am the reason why I am alive. So, I assume you are here to kill me, to prove to the world that you, and by some logical fallacy, your father are better than me and my father?”

Vanko smiles again. “In Monaco, I wanted to make you bleed. If I can make God bleed, the people will cease to believe in him. And there will be blood in the water. And the sharks will come. I was going to sit and watch as the world consumed you. But I did not get the chance. I thought… that is fine; palladium in the chest, painful way to die. And here you are, not dead.”

“Yeah, I’m like a cockroach,” Tony retorts.

He raises his gauntlet, and he’s firing at Vanko, but his whips light up, crackling with electricity, and bat the repulsor blast away before it can come into contact with his body.

And then, he’s flying at Vanko, along with Rhodey, both of them shooting as much as they can, firing everything that they have in their armour, but it doesn’t seem to be able to do anything to him, with Vanko too in control of his whips, and finally, it ends up with one of Vanko’s whips wrapped around Tony’s and Rhodey’s throats, strangling them, dragging them in so tightly that their feet slip out from underneath him in the puddles that they’re standing on.

“Uh, Rhodey,” Tony says, blinking fast and wide underneath the helmet as the idea occurs to him. “I got an idea. Put your hand up.”

Rhodey lifts his hand, their gauntlets now facing each other, and he knows, immediately, that Rhodey knows what he’s talking about with his suggestion.

“This is your idea?” Rhodey asks, dubiously.

“Yep.”

Rhodey nods once, then, twice. “I’m ready. I’m ready. Go, go, go!”

And Tony fires at the same time that Rhodey does, and the blasts meet in such a terrifying current of light, both blasts trying to beat each other, and then, the small nova of energy explodes outwards.

Unfortunately for Vanko, he’s in the middle.

When the blast dies down, Tony’s on his back, staring up at the stars that are scattered across the sky in a spilled sugar, and then, he breathes, slow and deep, and it still pains him, pains in his chest like that comforting ache of the arc reactor nudging against the other organs in his chest, the parts of his heart and his lungs that are left after Yinsen had been forced to cut away so much tissue and so much flesh and so much of his insides to make room for the arc reactor, but it’s a normal pain, pain that he’s gotten used to, pain that he knows that will stay with him until the day he dies after what happened in Afghanistan, but it’s not the pain of the palladium poisoning.

He rises to his waist, and he thinks, _Rhodey._

His eyes fly across the park, and then, he spots him, lying by the tree, equally prostrate as Tony was a few minutes ago, and then, Tony is running with some unforeseen, unthought-of strength, ending up on his knees by his body.

He hesitates to shake him, because he knows that there’s a thing about not moving someone after they’ve had a fall because they might have a spinal injury, and that’s the last thing that he wants for Rhodey.

“Rhodey,” he murmurs. “Rhodey, Rhodey, are you okay?”

His hand settles on Rhodey’s shoulder, over the armour.

A moment passes, and fear crawls up Tony’s throat, choking up, and his hands are shaking, trembling, and then, he hears the groan, and the bile rushes back into his stomach, and he almost sobs in relief.

“Rhodey?”

“What hit me?”

“I think it was nuclear power,” Tony says, a laugh caught in his voice.

There’s a pause.

“Of course it was,” Rhodey mutters. “Ugh, you can have the suit back after second thought.”

Tony grins. “No, I can’t. There are no take-backsies.”

“No take-backsies?” Rhodey asks, incredulously, sitting up with Tony’s help. “What are you, seven?”

Tony’s helmet pulls away from his face, and he cups Rhodey’s face in his hands, with the armour and all, and presses his mouth to the smooth metal right between Rhodey’s eyes.

“I love you,” he hums.

“I love you too.”

They climb to their feet and make their way over to what looks like Vanko’s body.

He’s still alive, somehow, blood streaming from his ears and his mouth in rivulets staining his neck and chest, and Tony knows that he’ll be dead in a few minutes, and he’s not exactly interested in calling for an ambulance for the guy that tried to kill him at least twice and clearly has daddy issues that would rival Tony’s.

Ivan’s eyes open in slits, the only parts of his eyes showing being his pupils, blown black.

“You lose,” he rasps, his mouth stretching upwards in a smile, showing blood-stained teeth.

Then, the reactor starts flashing red, along with all of the drones, trashed in various pieces around the park, and Tony realises what’s happening.

“All these drones are rigged to blow. We have to get out of here,” Rhodey voices his thoughts.

A thought occurs to him.

“Pepper?”

There’s no answer.

“Get out of here,” Tony tells Rhodey, panic clawing at his throat. “I’m going to find Pepper.”

Rhodey nods and then, the two of them shoot up into the sky, flying in different directions. Tony jets off towards the Expo, and he drops down in a straight line, seeing Pepper standing on the steps, staring horrified at a drone that is pretty much ready to blow, unable to get her feet to work. He grabs her by the waist and throws them back into the air, all the while Pepper screams in his ear.

Below them, the drone explodes in a rain of fire, and they barely escape it, fleeing to the closest rooftop that is furthest away from the blast radius. His armour is heated, and his helmet is smoking, and he gets it off his head before it erupts in a shower of sparks.

“Oh, shit, oh, shit,” Pepper is panting, doubled over, her hands on her thighs.

“Breathe, breathe,” he says, not even knowing if that’s the right thing to say, his hand outstretched but not quite touching her.

“I _am_ breathing,” Pepper snaps at him. “I don’t need to be _told_ to breathe, Tony, for fuck’s sake.”

Tony reels back. “Okay, okay, sorry,” he says, offended.

“Oh, my God, I can’t take this anymore,” Pepper moans, her voice sounding thick.

Tony stills. “You can’t?” His voice sounds unsure, careful.

“I can’t take this,” Pepper repeats.

“Look at me,” Tony offers.

“My body, literally, cannot handle the stress,” Pepper explains, gesticulating wildly with her hands. “I never know if you’re gonna kill yourself or wreck the whole company-”

“I think I did okay,” he insists and then, winces when there’s one last drone exploding behind them.

“I quit. I’m resigning. That’s it,” Pepper says, firmly, and then, her mouth snaps shut, audibly, as if she didn’t know where that came from, that she was even going to say that.

Tony blinks at her, and his stomach twists. “Oh,” he says, lamely. “You’re done.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay, okay, I… I get it.”

_Time to prove that you’re a big boy, Stark._

He looks at her. “You’re right. You deserve better. You’ve… taken such good care of me. You’ve put up with so much shit for me, and you’ve… well, you’re my best friend,” he says, almost shy in the way that the words come out of his mouth.

Pepper stares at him, unblinking, and then, she shifts on her feet uncomfortably. “I thought Rhodey was your best friend,” she says, quietly.

“Well, he is, but I’m also sleeping with him, so he’s a different kind of best friend.” Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, I’m not explaining myself properly. I don’t…” He gnaws on his lower lip. “I don’t have many friends, Pepper, and all my family is dead. You’re my family, and I should have… well, I should have said that to you before. I shouldn’t have waited until now to tell you that.”

“You’re right,” Pepper says, and her eyes are shining. “You should have told me about that before.” Her throat flexes. “But right back at you.”

Emotion swells up inside his body like a bruise, and he clears his throat.

“Okay, so, uh, let’s talk clean-up?” he says, carefully.

Pepper clears her throat as well, blinking back the tears. “I’ll handle the transition. It’ll be smooth.”

“Okay, but what about the press? Because, to be fair, you only had the job for a week. That’s gonna seem…” he trails off.

Pepper reels back, offended. “Well, with you, it’s like dog years.”

Tony waves his hand, dismissively. “Nevertheless, it’s not a good look.”

Pepper holds up her hand. “We can deal with it, okay? It’s not the shortest ever presidency. We can deal with it. There’s no reason to overcomplicate things.”

“I don’t know; have you only recently met Tony?”

Tony’s head swings in the direction of the voice, and Rhodey is casually sitting on the edge of the roof, observing them with a clinical eye.

“How long have you been here?”

Rhodey shrugs, the armour clunking slightly. “Oh, I came here straight away.”

Pepper clears her throat. “So, what you just saw was-”

“-was you resigning from Stark Industries. Yeah, I know, I heard the whole thing.”

“You only lasted a week,” Tony accuses, a smile playing around his mouth.

“Oh, fuck off,” Pepper retorts. “Besides, I think that there’s something else to be concerned about right now.”

A wicked grin forms itself on her lovely face, and her pale gaze slides back and forth between Tony and Rhodey.

“I distinctly remember a proposal,” she says, almost with a taunting edge. “Are we going to address that or…?”

Tony and Rhodey stare at each other, equally embarrassed.

“Well, you see, I thought we were going to get killed by a gang of killer robots,” Rhodey says, awkwardly.

“-yeah, and I thought he was just, you know, high on the adrenaline-”

“Does that mean that you’re taking back the proposal?” Pepper demands, her hands on her hips, as she stares at Rhodey.

Rhodey shifts on his part of the roof, uncomfortably. “I mean, I think we need to have a conversation about it, and maybe not propose after a life-threatening event-”

“Okay, you know what, fuck this,” Tony declares.

He saunters over to Rhodey and bends down, the joints in his thighs straining (my God, he’s old now).

“I don’t have a ring,” he tells Rhodey. “I mean, I might be able to fashion something from the armour, which would be really symbolic. But it’s escaping me right now how I might be able to do this and what I might use, so I guess this has to be a symbolic gesture for now? At least until I get the ring? But the sentiment stands.”

He takes a deep breath.

“James Rhodes-”

“Oh, my God,” Rhodey moans, burying his face in his hands, baffled but pleased.

“Yeah, now you know how it feels,” Tony says with the right amount of glee and relish. “Now, shut up; you’re ruining my moment.” He takes another deep breath. “James Rhodes, you have been my best friend since, well, as long as I can remember. I was a defensive fourteen-year-old at MIT, and everyone hated me, and everyone hated you too, and I’m pretty sure racism had something to do with both of those things.”

Rhodey makes a face like he agrees, but he doesn’t want to say it out loud.

“You… you were my best friend for so long that when we kissed for the first time, it made sense, because I honestly couldn’t imagine myself with anyone else now. I think they say something about marrying your best friend, or just being sure that you can be friends with someone before you’re their spouse, and I’d like to think that we knock that part out of the park.”

Rhodey snorts, but his eyes are shining, suspiciously bright.

Tony ignores the fact that Pepper is watching this entire scene, sniffling quietly in the background.

“I love you,” he says, honestly. “I’ve known it practically my entire life. You’re the person that I’ve known the longest, the person that knows me the best, the person that loves me the best. You… you call me out on my shit, you give me shit when I’m doing something wrong, and you don’t try to protect my feelings because you know that I’m not perfect and that I can handle it. You don’t love Anthony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, heir to the Stark empire, all of that shit; you love Tony, the guy who makes pasta in the microwave because he doesn’t like to use the stove if he can help it,” he says, fond and rueful. “I just… I love you. I love you more than I ever thought was possible. You see every part of me, and you know every part of me, and no one has fought for me the way you have, and I would fight for you too. Nothing would stop me from fighting for you. You’re my rock, my ride-or-die, I swear.”

“I know,” Rhodey says, roughly, blinking back the sheen of tears that Tony can see in his dark eyes.

“I love you, more than I’ve ever loved anyone. We’ve been tiptoeing around this for long enough. I already know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Let’s jump this cliff too.” Tony’s hands are shaking, and his stomach is tumbling restlessly, like there really is a swarm of butterflies in there. “Marry me, Rhodey.”

Rhodey stares at him. “There’s going to be a lot of shit after this. People aren’t going to like it,” he warns.

Tony knows that, knows that no one is going to like Tony Stark and a black man, even if they know that this black man and Tony have been intertwined with each other for the last twenty-five years, coming out to the public as an item, as an engaged couple, as a married couple, that the military is only one of their worries, because society is cruel and judgmental and the only way that this could probably be worse for them is if he were white.

Tony doesn’t care, though; he doesn’t care about anyone but him and Rhodey.

“I know,” he says, solemn as the grave, “and I understand if you want to keep things the way that they are. I grew up in this world; I grew up with the rumours and the stories and the whispers and the scandals and the judgments, and it’s _shit_. These people, they’re like fucking animals, Rhodey. They will eat and eat and eat at you until they’re full, and they’re never fucking full, and when they sense something that they can pass judgment over, _like this_ , they will never stop – not until you become Britney Spears.”

“Poor Britney,” Pepper murmurs behind them.

“Are you actually proposing to me and convincing me to _not_ marry you at the same time?” Rhodey asks, incredulously.

“I just want you to understand what you’re getting into, because being with me the way that we’ve been together the last twenty years is very different to, uh, to getting married to me,” Tony says with a self-deprecating smile. “I hate those people, the ones that think they’re entitled to me and what I do and pass judgment on the things that I do because they think that they know better, that they _are_ better than me, that I’m beholden to them in some way. I’m not, and you aren’t either, but I’m not going to pretend that it’s easy, that it’s great, because they’re _mean_. They’re awful fucking people, and they will hurt you the way that they hurt me. I don’t want that for you.”

“Why are you trying to convince me against marrying you?” Rhodey demands.

“Because I want you to know all the facts. We’ve spent all of these years sneaking around, pretending that we’re just really close friends, the ultimate bromance, which we are, and only the people closest to us know about us. But if the rest of the world knows-”

“I’m just surprised that they would care that much,” Rhodey muses.

“They will always care,” Tony says, carefully. “I love you, and I want to marry you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to go out there and call you my husband, and there are problems. I know that it isn’t going to be easy. I know there’s _Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell_ and the fact that same-sex marriage isn’t legal in California yet. There’s problems that we need to solve, and I know that, but I want to marry you, Rhodey, and I hope that you want to marry me.”

Rhodey stares at him. “I would just like to note, for the record, that I proposed to you first,” he finally says.

Tony groans, and his eyes slide up towards the sky, where the stars spill across the expanse like a line of spilled sugar.


	10. x.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the free square (N3) for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

“What?” Rhodey says, defensively. “I did! Remember, when we were fighting off those crazy drones, and I asked you to marry me. Pepper, you remember, don’t you?”

“He did ask first,” Pepper agrees.

“I vaguely remember something like a proposal,” Tony says dismissively, “if it could even be called a proposal.”

Rhodey looks offended. “Are you actually saying that your proposal was better than mine?”

“You took it back,” Tony shoots back.

“I did not!”

“You did!” Tony retorts. “I distinctly remember you saying that maybe there was adrenaline involved.”

“I did not take it back.”

Rhodey jumps off the wall and paces.

“You are such a liar,” Tony accuses.

“I proposed first,” Rhodey says, rounding on him and pointing.

“You gave me some vague approximation of a proposal.”

“You are so annoying!” Rhodey snaps at him.

Tony smiles, slyly. “Does that mean you don’t want to marry me?”

“It means I kind of want to have sex with you right now,” Rhodey retorts.

Pepper makes a disgusted noise at the back of her throat. “Okay, I like you two together, and I’ll be so happy for you if you decide to get married, mostly because I expect to be maid of honour for either one, or both of you, but that doesn’t mean that I need to hear about your sexy times.”

“Our sexy times are hot,” Tony says, gravely.

Pepper has hot spots of colour in her face, and she looks away.

Tony’s delighted. “Are you thinking about us?” he asks, curiously.

“Fuck off,” Pepper says, furiously. “This is all your fault.”

Tony is affronted. “Excuse me? My fault?”

“Yeah, you’re the one who was _dying_ and didn’t tell anyone.”

“How does me not telling you about the fact that I was dying, and you thinking about Rhodey and I having sex, have anything to do with each other?” Tony asks, confused.

“Because you didn’t tell us, and you’re making fun of me,” Pepper snaps, her hands on her hips, as she stands much like a tower that cannot be breached. She rounds on Rhodey. “Did you know?”

“Not until a little while ago,” Rhodey says, patiently.

Pepper gapes at him. “He didn’t tell _you_?”

“He didn’t tell me,” Rhodey agrees, a little disgruntlement clear on his face.

Pepper glowers at him. “You didn’t tell Rhodey,” she hisses.

Tony tips his hands up. “I didn’t tell Rhodey, and we’ve talked about it. I don’t know how much he believes me, or he’s willing to forgive me for it, and that’s his choice. If he doesn’t want to forgive me for it, he doesn’t have to. And I guess that applies to you too.”

Pepper stares at him. “Who are you, and what have you with Tony Stark?” she demands.

“I’m sorry,” he says, softly. “You’re right. I should have told you. I should have told you both about what was happening.”

“What _was_ happening?” Pepper asks, her face softening with concern.

“The arc reactor, the core I had before, the palladium, it was poisoning my blood,” he says, carefully. “It started around February, and it just sort of spiralled from there. It was quick, Pepper. I didn’t… I didn’t know how to talk about it, because I didn’t know what to say. I had to try and fix it, and it didn’t work. Nothing was working, and then, I realised that there was nothing left to do, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I had tried everything that I possibly could to fix the palladium poisoning, and I couldn’t fix it. And it was painful.”

“But why wouldn’t you tell us?” Pepper asks, hurt. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, Tony, I’m not just your assistant, I’m one of your best friends. Rhodey’s your partner. You guys have been together for three quarters of your life. Why wouldn’t you tell _him_?”

“Because I was scared,” Tony says, honestly.

Pepper gives him a loaded look.

“Because despite the image that I project to the world, I really don’t want to die,” he goes on to say, “and because of some emotional and psychological baggage, I was scared of admitting it to you.”

“Tony,” Pepper says, softly, “we’re your friends. We love you. We… we would just want to be there for you. We would want to take care of you. We would want to help you-”

“I didn’t want you to do that, though,” he says, quietly.

“But I don’t understand,” Pepper replies, sounding frustrated, almost to the point as though she wants to stomp her foot. “Why would you not tell us? We love you. We’re friends. We’re _family_. We’re here for you, and we will always be here for you. Tony, why would you not trust us with this? This isn’t the same as you selling your mansion or something, Tony. This is you; this is your _life_. Can you imagine what it would have been like for us to come into your room one day and try and wake you up and you didn’t wake up?”

There are tears in Pepper’s eyes at this stage, and just the sight makes his chest hurt, forces that sharp spike of phantom pain in his chest, as though the arc reactor isn’t there, as though his chest is whole, without issue, and his lungs are squeezing too tight.

Tony’s eyes slide to Rhodey’s.

“Because I didn’t want you to be sad?” he offers, weakly. “Because I love you both, and I wanted it to be easier for you when I died.”

“And I told him that he was a fucking moron,” Rhodey chimes in.

“Fucking moron,” Pepper agrees.

Tony shrugs. “It’s entirely possible.”

Pepper rubs her hand over her face. “It wouldn’t be easy, you know?” she says, thin and taut. “I know that you think that you’re just someone that we put up with because we have to, or because you pay me, or because you have sex with him.”

Rhodey scoffs, derisively. “The thought that I’d be so fucking shallow is beyond me, but okay?”

“But it would kill us if you died,” Pepper goes on to say, her voice sharp around the edges. “It would kill _me_ , because you are not just one of my best friends, Tony, but because you are the only family I have left in this world. You and Rhodey, that’s it. You’re all I have, and if you died, it would _hurt_. It would fucking hurt me if you died, so you don’t get to stand there and tell me that you would have done that to me with a straight face. You don’t get to do that, because it fucking sucks, and it sucks that I’m finding out after the fact too. That _hurts_ , Tony. That hurts, because the choice you made was to make me CEO of your company on the sly, and _not_ tell me that you were dying.”

“You’re right,” Tony says, rough with sorrow. He approaches her, with his hands outstretched. “You’re right, Pepper. It was a dick move, and it was unfair. You deserved better than that, both of you did, because you’re not just my friend. You’re right; you are my family. My parents are dead, and I don’t have any siblings, and the two of you, and Happy, are all I have left in this world. And it wasn’t fair for me to keep that from you. I stupidly thought that by not telling you, it would spare you all the grief and the trouble that I know you would’ve put yourself through to take care of me. I didn’t want you to do that for me.”

“But that’s what you do, you jackass, for the people that you love,” Pepper retorts. “You worry over them and you take care of them and you fucking mourn them when they die.”

“You’re right, you’re right, and like I said, it was a dick move. And I’m so sorry, Pepper. You deserved better than that,” he looks at Rhodey, meaningfully, “you both did, and I am so sorry.”

Pepper sniffles, and she rubs at her eyes with the heels of her hands, her nail polish glinting in whatever low light is available to them on this rooftop.

“You’re okay now?” she clarifies, her voice still fragile.

“Yeah, I’m okay now,” Tony promises.

“And you’re not dying anymore?”

“I’m not dying anymore.”

“Okay,” Pepper says, her voice rough, as if her outrage at him keeping this secret from her is suddenly choked by tears.

She throws herself into his arms, colliding with the metal of the armour, and he shifts his weight to ensure that she doesn’t bruise herself on it. It takes him a moment, while she’s trying to squeeze him to death, before he closes his arms around her as well, his nose finding its way into her strawberry blonde hair, something crumpling within his chest like relief.

“I’m sorry,” he says, gruffly. “I should have told you.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Pepper retorts, her voice muffled the plating on his shoulder. “And you shouldn’t have made me CEO of Stark Industries without telling me the real reason why you were making me CEO.”

“To be honest, that was only partly the reason why I stepped away from Stark Industries.”

“What?” Pepper asks, confused, pulling away from him.

“I mean, yeah, I was dying, and I wanted to leave Stark Industries in good hands, which is why I made you CEO, but honestly, Pepper, I’ve been wanting to make you CEO ever since Afghanistan.”

“What?” Pepper says again, gaping at him.

Tony shrugs. “It was my father’s company, and I made it strong, stronger than he ever did, and that was nice, to know that I was better than him in that aspect. That sounds fucked up, doesn’t it?”

Pepper and Rhodey nod.

Tony waves his hand, dismissively. “Okay, not important,” he says, quickly. “But I did what I wanted to do with the company, and I knew that you could take care of it much better than I could, so I gave you the company. I mean, it was only really half because I was dying, Pepper. I was always going to make you CEO.”

Pepper stares at him, stunned. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” she says, in a small voice.

And then, she’s hugging him again with a grip that he thinks could bend metal if Pepper really set her mind to it.

“I’m still mad at you, by the way.”

Tony huffs out a laugh. “Get in line,” he tells her, locking eyes with Rhodey.

* * *

“So, what did Fury want?”

Tony crosses his arms over his chest, defensively. “He wanted to tell me that he’s decided that I didn’t make the cut for the Avengers.”

“You mean his super-secret boy band?” Rhodey teases, slinging an arm around his shoulders, pausing the episode of _The Real Housewives of New York City_ that he was watching.

“Yeah, that,” Tony grumbles.

“So, they don’t want you to be a part of it?” Rhodey says, carefully.

“Evidently not.”

“And you’re upset about it.”

“Yes, I’m upset about it.”

“ _Why_ are you upset about it?” Rhodey asks, precise and calculated, like a surgeon with their knife, his entire body facing Tony’s sulking face. “Because the last I knew, you were not interested in being a part of the Avengers whatsoever.”

“Because they don’t want me now,” Tony says, affronted.

Realisation dawns in Rhodey’s eyes. “So, you wanted to be the one to tell them to fuck off,” he guesses.

“Exactly! See, you get me!”

“No, no, I’m _used_ to you. That’s different to _getting_ you,” Rhodey corrects.

Tony waves his hand. “That’s not the point, okay? Why would they, why would they go to all that trouble just to turn me down? I mean, they infiltrated my company, locked me in my own house, injected me with substances, and what, now they’ve decided that I’m not _good_ enough? It sucks.”

“But Tony, do you actually want to be a part of the Avengers?” Rhodey demands.

“No, but would it kill them to _want_ me so that I can reject them?”

“Okay, Tony,” Rhodey says, slowly, “baby, I love you, but that’s fucked up.”

“I know! I’m not proud of it. I just… like to be wanted,” Tony says, vaguely.

“Well, what did they actually say?”

“So, Fury handed me Agent Romanoff’s assessment of me.”

“Great,” Rhodey mutters under his breath, like he already knows that he’s not going to like what he hears. “What did the assessment from the not-psychologist say?”

“Apparently, I display compulsive behaviour-”

“Well, we know _that_.” Rhodey pauses. “I’m pretty sure you’re on the spectrum.”

“Thanks,” Tony says, dryly.

“Well, did you ever get tested?”

Tony scoffs in derision. “Oh, yeah, because Howard Stark would have allowed for his only son to be on the spectrum.”

Rhodey nudges him in the side, gently. “Come on, what else did Romanoff’s assessment say?”

“Well, I’m apparently prone to self-destructive tendencies.”

“Well, we knew that _too_.”

“Oh, shut up, I was dying. And frankly, aren’t we all?”

Rhodey sends him a flat look.

“Okay, okay, you’re completely functional and healthy and completely level-headed. Lucky fucking you,” Tony mutters under his breath. “And apparently, I exhibit tendencies of textbook narcissism.”

Rhodey makes a face and then, settles back against the couch. “Nah,” he drags out.

“Nah?” Tony queries.

“I mean, I’ve known you for a while. You’re not a narcissist, Tony. You just suck at feelings and people.”

“Don’t narcissists also suck at feelings and people?” Tony points out.

“Yeah, but… they’re assholes about it.”

“Okay, but am I not an asshole?”

“Yeah, but you’re not an asshole the way that narcissists are assholes.”

“What’s the difference between me being an asshole and a narcissist being an asshole?” Tony asks, confused.

“Well, don’t narcissists get all pissy when people don’t bow and scrape in front of them? You don’t do that. You know what? When in doubt, use the Internet. JARVIS?”

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes?”

“Can you bring up some information on narcissistic personality disorder?” Rhodey sits up, rubbing his hands together. “Okay, 11 Signs You’re Dating a Narcissist – and How to Get out.”

Tony throws his hands up in the air. “Great.”

“Calm down. No one is breaking up with anyone today,” Rhodey soothes. “Okay, one, they were charming as fuck at first. Love bombing, and then, as soon as you do something that disappoints them, they could turn on you.” He pauses. “Well, that doesn’t help us, because I don’t think that I’ve done anything that has ever disappointed you.”

“Exactly. Besides, when have I ever turned on you?” Tony scoffs, derisively.

“Okay, moving on. Two, they hog the conversation, talking about how great they are. I mean, you do hog the conversation, but you hog _all_ the conversations, and it’s not really about yourself when you do that,” Rhodey muses. “You’re always talking about quantum mechanics and expecting people to be as excited by it as you are, and they never are, but that’s not your fault. Do you engage in a conversation about me? Well, yeah, you do. Okay, three, they feed off your compliments. To be fair, you do have a praise kink.”

Tony twists his head so that he can’t see his blush.

“But you’re not feeding for that shit, unless you’re in the mood, and you want me to call you a good boy.”

Rhodey’s hand slides up the inside of Tony’s thigh, and Tony groans, tipping his head back against the couch.

“Four, you lack empathy. No, I don’t see that. Five, they don’t have any, or many, long-term friends.”

“Okay, that one is true,” Tony agrees, grudgingly.

“Yeah, _but_ you don’t give me shit when I go and hang out with people who aren’t you,” Rhodey reminds him. “Six, they pick on you constantly. No, you don’t do that. Seven, they gaslight you. No, that’s not happening. Eight, they dance around defining the relationship. Nope. Nine, they think they’re right about everything and never apologise. I think we have adequate proof with a recent scenario that you know that you’re wrong and you do apologise. Ten, they panic when you try to break up with them. Well, that hasn’t been a problem to-date. And eleven, when you show them that you’re really done, they lash out. Again, it’s not a problem that I’ve seen, and Tony, you have enough shitty self-esteem that if I did decide to break up with you, you’d probably pack my bags for me.”

Tony is silent for a moment, and then, he’s dragging his hand over his face. “Fair point.” He folds his hands in his lap. “Basically, Fury went on to say that the recruitment assessment for the Avenger Initiative was that Iron Man was recommended, but Tony Stark was not recommended.”

Rhodey frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I thought so too, and then, I thought about it, and I realised that what they want is the armour. The person that pilots the armour, and by that, I mean me, they don’t need that person,” Tony says, heavily. “I think what Fury probably had in mind was that he was going to have some loyal SHIELD agent pilot the armour instead of me, so they don’t have to deal with all of… _this_.”

“Well, fuck them,” Rhodey tells Tony.

“At this juncture, they’d only like to use me as a consultant,” Tony says, grinding his teeth.

Rhodey shifts on the couch. “And what did you say?” he asks, curiously.

“I said that they couldn’t afford me,” Tony says, simply.

Rhodey snorts. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Rhodey presses a smacking kiss against the side of his head, his hand batting away the hologram of the article, so that he can sling both arms around Tony’s body, dragging him against Rhodey’s chest.

“Hey, look at me,” he says, softly.

Tony sighs and twists his head to catch Rhodey’s eyes with his. “What?”

“I love you,” he says, honestly.

“I know,” Tony replies, without hesitation.

“I think you’re amazing. I think you’re a good man, that you’ve done great things, that you’ve helped people. I think… I think you deserve to be Iron Man, and yes, I was upset that you hadn’t told me about the palladium, Tony, but I don’t think you did it because you’re a narcissist. I think you did it because you have this strange perspective where you don’t think that people stay, and I know why you think that. I know that people have hurt you, but I’m staying, Tony. I’ve _stayed_. You haven’t driven me off yet, and I’m not going to let you.”

Tony’s throat flexes. “Because you love me,” he rasps.

Rhodey’s hand closes around the nape of his neck, squeezing slightly. “Not just because of that, but because you’re mine.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, softly, curling towards him, a solid length of warm beside Tony (even though he’s actually shorter than him, even in their forties). “And you’re mine too.”

“I am,” Rhodey says, solemnly. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

“You should, though,” Tony reminds him, “if I do become the kind of person in that article, you should run as far as possible.”

“Oh, I will,” Rhodey replies, reasonably, “but I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon. But I did mean what I said a couple of days ago, Tony. You can’t lie to me like that again. You just can’t. I’m not scared of you becoming a narcissist, Tony; I’m scared of you lying to me so much that you push me away, and then, I walk away. I don’t think our relationship is going to end because you end up becoming a smug, self-important, selfish caricature of the guy that I fell in love with. I think our relationship might end because after all of these years, you still don’t believe that I love you, and that you think you have the right to carry my life and your life and our relationship and my feelings on _your_ head without talking to me about it.”

Tony stares at him, and his heart is pounding painfully against the arc reactor in his chest.

“You’re right,” he says, heavily. “You’re right. I don’t know why I have trouble with that. I don’t know why I just assume that everything is going to turn to shit. I want to blame the way that I grew up, but for fuck’s sake, I’m a forty-year-old man and it seems childish to sit here and say that I don’t trust people because my father didn’t love me.” He drags his hand over his face. “I do know that you love me, you know?” he says, softly. “I know, logically, that you love me, and most of the time, I live logically. But when I don’t…” he trails off.

“You start thinking that people are going to leave you?”

Tony nods and lets his head hang off the back of the couch.

“Something like that.”

“I’m not going anywhere, and I think you might need therapy,” Rhodey tells him.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“And they’re wrong, by the way,” Rhodey says, squarely, the point of his knee nudging at Tony’s thigh. “SHIELD, I mean. I think you’re great as Iron Man. I wouldn’t trust anyone but you in that armour, and I’m glad that you trust me enough to give me one of my own.”

Tony huffs. “I was barely out of that fucking cave when I was already planning an armour for you,” he mutters.

Rhodey grins with all of his teeth, a smile that makes the blood in his veins turn molten, and he reaches for Tony again, pressing another smacking kiss against his hair.

“Again, like I said, that’s why I love you. I trust you to be Iron Man, and if SHIELD doesn’t want you, fuck them, and fuck Romanoff, frankly, and whatever high horse she came riding in on. Who the hell does she think she is?” he mutters under his breath.

“I didn’t think you’d take it so close to heart,” Tony says, bemused.

“Well, if there’s anyone fucking alive that gets to psychoanalyse you, it’s me, okay? And maybe Pepper,” Rhodey declares. “Not some hotsy-totsy SHIELD agent who may have actually committed industrial espionage and broke a whole lot of rules.”

Tony’s lips tip up at the corners. “Hotsy-totsy?” he teases.

“Well, a part of me wants to call her a bitch, but I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to say that.”

Tony buries his face in his Rhodey’s shoulder and starts laughing.

Rhodey rubs his back. “And you know what, fuck SHIELD. We’ll start our own superhero team.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, we’ll call ourselves the Awesomes and we’ll wear glitter on our uniforms. Do you think Pepper and Hap would join?”

“Pepper would look pretty good in spandex, but I think Happy would just punch us,” Tony tells him.

“Still, glitter,” Rhodey says, waggling his eyebrows.

“You are such a dork,” Tony tells him.

“But you love me.”

“I do,” Tony agrees. He leans back against the couch. “Is this the episode with Kelly losing it in Saint John?”

“Oh, yeah, Scary Island,” Rhodey says, grappling for the remote so that he can switch it on. “Prepare to watch the crazy.”

* * *

They’re in New York, staying at the Ritz-Carlton with all of Rhodey’s family, eating dinner, when Rhodey suddenly stands up.

Everyone goes silent.

Lila lets the forkful of chicken drop back onto her plate, staring curiously at her uncle.

Tony’s own plate of vegetables goes unattended – he usually hates dinners like this, because the vegetarian version is usually just cauliflower in some strange sauce, and that’s it, and the dessert, instead of getting ice cream or tiramisu like everyone else, he gets passionfruit sorbet.

He stares at Rhodey, especially as the other man pushes his chair away from the table and smooths his hands down his dark slacks, anxious and fluttering awkwardly.

“Rhodey,” he says, carefully.

“Okay, okay,” Rhodey clears his throat, “I got this.” He nods to himself, almost as though he’s squaring himself for something. “I got this.”

And then, he’s getting down on one knee.


	11. xi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Lila Rhodes" square (G2) of the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

Tony’s fork clatters against his plate. “What are you doing?” he asks, flatly.

“Shut up, I’m proposing,” Rhodey declares.

He shoves his hand into his jacket pocket and out comes a velvet-lined ring box, which he flicks open, revealing an engagement ring, a gold band with a significant diamond inlaid into the band.

“What?” Tony gapes at him.

“Anthony Edward Stark-”

Lila snickers in the background, and Roberta hisses at her to be quiet.

“I have known you since you were an annoying, shy fourteen-year-old who didn’t know how to do his own laundry,” he begins, haltingly. “I’ve loved you for so long that it seems like forever ago that I met that fourteen-year-old, but the years that have passed in between, well, I wouldn’t regret them for anything in the world.”

Absentmindedly, Tony realises that Rhodey is really good at off-the-cuff speeches.

“All I know is that I love you; I loved that fourteen-year-old that sat next to me in the first class that we had as college students, and I loved the boy that I kissed for the first time and I was so pissed that he was taller than me even though I’m three years older than him.”

“He’s still taller than you now,” Lila chimes in, a sly smile playing around her mouth, looking so much like her mother and uncle in that moment that it makes Tony’s chest hurt (Lila will never remember Jeannette – Jeannette, who pinched his ass the first time that they met and bemoaned the fact that he was skinny, Jeannette, who made fun of him and Rhodey fluttering around each other, having understood what existed between the two of them even before they did, Jeannette, who welcomed him into her home and her family and treated him like a little brother all because Rhodey loved him – and that is what hurts Tony the most).

Rhodey shoots his niece a warning look, and she mimes zipping up her mouth and throwing away the key.

“I loved you then, and I love you now. When you were…” Out of the corner of his eye, he looks at Lila, “when you went missing, I thought… I thought, well, a part of me thought my life would end there.”

A knot burns in Tony’s throat, staring down at this man who is being so open, so vulnerable with him right now.

“I knew then that I didn’t want to waste another moment, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you more than I ever thought I could love someone. I never thought that, well, I always thought that what my parents had was something from the romance novels. I never thought they were real; I never thought I could love someone the way that they love each other, and now, I know that I was dumb, because I have you, and I love you so much. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

He says it honestly, without flinching, his eyes fixed on Tony’s.

“I’ve known that since the day that we first kissed. It killed me to leave you every time that I did, and it made me so happy to see you again every single time. And I don’t want to keep leaving you. I don’t, no more, not after everything that’s happened. I want to be your husband, and I want you to be mine, and I want to be together. And I know that we’ve, uh, we’ve done this a couple of times, back and forth, and we couldn’t really do anything with it, but it’s legal now in New York, Tony. And I want to marry you. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you, and I really hope that you’ll say yes.”

“What about, uh, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?” Tony offers, his heart digging hard into his lungs.

Rhodey’s hand reaches for his, atop his lap. “It’s almost gone, Tony. They’re saying by September that it’ll be over. And I don’t care about that, Tony. They’re not going to do anything to me, not now, not after you gave me the War Machine armour and you made sure that no one else could pilot it.” He squeezes Tony’s hand. “It’s just us now, baby. No one else. Marry me, what d’you say?”

Tony licks his lips, and his eyes slide over the rest of their dinner guests, that being Rhodey’s parents and little Lila, and Roberta is holding onto Terrance’s hand as tight as possible, on top of the tablecloth, a sheen of tears covering Terrance’s eyes, and Lila is watching both of them intently, her head in her hands.

He looks back at Rhodey, who is staring at him so hopefully, and his heart seems fit to burst.

Funny, he never thought he would be the marrying kind.

“Yeah,” he finds himself saying, his mouth splitting open in a smile, showing his teeth, “yeah, I’ll marry you. Let’s get married.”

“Yeah?” Rhodey says, blinking fast and wide, like he hadn’t expected that to be Tony’s answer, even though they’d done this twice over already, with no end in sight.

“Yeah, let’s get married. Let’s get married!”

Tony throws himself into Rhodey’s arms, and the two of them topple to the floor together, their legs tangled, narrowly avoiding splitting their skulls on the chair that Rhodey had just vacated to propose to him.

There are cheers around them, as Roberta and Terrance flee their own seats to help them to their feet. Roberta embraces Tony first, and it feels like his mother is embracing him, so he squeezes back, fits his face against her shoulder, even if she’s almost a head shorter than him.

“I’m so glad, I’m so happy for you two,” Roberta murmurs. “You’ve always been part of my family, sweetheart. I’m just glad that you’re making it official.”

“Me too,” he says, his voice muffled by her shoulder.

Roberta cups the back of his head, and then, they pull away from each other, so that Terrance can clap his arms around Tony as well.

“Congratulations,” Terrance says, gruffly, and then, he rubs his hands over his eyes, surreptitiously, lined with tears.

“You’re crying,” Tony says, gleefully.

Terrance shrugs. “I like weddings, okay?” he says, defensively.

Tony softens.

His father would never have cried.

His mother would have, he thinks; she had enough softness left in her for that, at least.

Lila is the last to embrace him, her thin, short arms wrapping around his waist, her cheek resting against his abdomen.

“I’m so glad that you and Uncle Jim are getting married,” Lila murmurs. “I mean, I already call you Uncle Tony, so I suppose all this does is to make things, uh, more official.”

Tony smooths back her hair, leaning down to kiss her on the forehead.

“I’m so glad that you’re okay with it.”

Lila beams up at him. “Are you kidding? Now, I get to tell people that Iron Man’s my uncle.”

Tony grins down at her. “I mean, to be fair, War Machine is your uncle right now.”

“Yeah, but people don’t really know about him yet. Iron Man’s all anyone ever talks about. And they know that Uncle Jim and you are close. They don’t know you’re dating, of course, but they do know that the two of you are friends, so they bug me about you a lot, whether you can give them autographs or whether you’ll pick me up at school so they can meet you.”

Tony frowns. “Is that something that you want me to do? Because I can-”

“No,” Lila drags out. “Because if you did show up, they wouldn’t leave me alone about it, and I like you, Uncle Tony, and I’d like it to stay that way. It wouldn’t stay that way if everyone at school kept annoying me.”

Tony frowns. “But you just said that you wanted to tell people that Iron Man’s your uncle.”

Lila stares up at him, uncomprehending. “Yeah, and?”

“And nothing,” Tony says, carefully. “I’m just really confused.”

Lila leans up and pats him on the cheek. “Yeah, that happens sometimes.”

Tony is bemused, when Lila releases him, and Rhodey replaces her.

“I see you got hit by Hurricane Lila,” Rhodey teases.

Tony shakes his head. “I mean, it’s not the first time I’ve met her or anything, but I don’t see her often enough to be used to it.” He pauses. “Maybe we should change that?” he offers.

Rhodey frowns. “What, you want to move closer to my parents?”

Tony shrugs. “To be fair, I could do what I do for Stark Industries and be Iron Man anywhere.”

“Okay, you are the only person in existence that wants to move _closer_ to their in-laws,” Rhodey points out.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Your parents are no Tamil serial mothers-in-law, believe me.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I don’t know, I guess I thought that maybe you missed them, and maybe you wanted to be closer to them-”

“-and maybe _you_ missed them too,” Rhodey points out, his voice gentle.

Tony flashes him a strained smile. “Maybe I love them too,” he confesses. “Maybe they’re my family too.”

“I know you do, baby, and I know they are.” Rhodey wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Now, I think that there’s one tradition that we’ve been putting off.”

Tony frowns. “What are you talking about?”

Rhodey’s hand curls around Tony’s wrist, lifting his hand up, and with deft movements, he slides the engagement ring onto Tony’s ring finger, before raising the hand to his mouth so that he can brush his mouth over the knuckles.

“I just want it on the record that I proposed first,” Tony says, solemnly.

Rhodey’s face twists up in disdain. “You did not propose first. I proposed first, just before we fought Vanko.”

“Yeah, and then you shut it down,” Tony reminds him, slyly. “And then, I proposed on the rooftop. I reset the proposals, so I proposed first.”

“You are such a liar,” Rhodey accuses.

Tony holds a hand to his heart, mock-affronted. “Is that any way to speak to your fiancé?”

* * *

They get married six months later, in October, when Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is finally repealed and they’re allowed to go out in public, wearing rings, holding hands, _together_ , without it reverberating in some awful way on Rhodey (Tony knows this part of the world, knows their hate and their resentment and their fury and their judgment in his bones, like it’s part of his being, like it had some part in making him the man that he is today, and Rhodey does too, because they are an Indian man and a Black man in love, and the world will never allow them to be in peace by virtue of those things alone, but Rhodey doesn’t deserve it; Tony has hurt people, has been the cause of so many deaths and so much grief, but Rhodey deserves no bile, no hate, and he’ll be damned if he allows that to happen, if he allows Rhodey to be touched by any of that evil).

The night before, Rhodey knocks on the door to his hotel room.

“Okay, this is really, really bad,” Tony says through the door. “The groom is not meant to see the groom before the wedding.”

He can practically hear Rhodey rolling his eyes on the other side.

“I just want to talk to you, because I just realised that this was going to be our last time talking as single people.”

Tony bangs his forehead on the door. “Rhodey, we haven’t been single for like… twenty-four years.”

“Yeah, but it’s different being single and in a relationship, and being married.”

Tony pauses. “I don’t think there is,” he says, carefully.

“I don’t know. My dad gave me some whiskey. I think it might be the whiskey talking.”

Tony laughs. “I thought there might be some alcohol involved.” He pauses. “I kind of want to invite you in.”

“So, let me in,” Rhodey cajoles. “Let’s have sex.”

Tony laughs again, this time with a shocked edge. “Really?”

“Yeah, it’ll be an interesting comparison. We’re scientists, right? Isn’t it an interesting experiment to conduct? Let’s have sex tonight, and we’ll have sex tomorrow night, and we’ll compare if the sex is different, and then, there might be enough data to say that the marriage or the wedding made things different.”

Tony gnaws on his lower lip. “I honestly thought that our roles would be reversed tonight.”

“Yeah?” Rhodey says, softly.

“I thought that I’d be on the other side of your door by now, but then, I thought you’d send me away or your mother would catch me lurking and send me away, because, like I said, the groom is not meant to see the groom before the wedding. It’s not lucky.”

“I would never send you away.” Rhodey’s voice is firm. “Open the door.”

“What if this ruins the rest of our life?”

“It won’t. Tony, we’ve been through kidnappings, attempted murders, terminal illnesses, battles with supervillains, deaths of loved ones, and we’re still here. I don’t think spending the night together is going to really be more bad luck than everything that we’ve already gone through. We’ve made it through all of the miles, baby. This is it. This is our happy ending.”

Tony hesitates for an agonising moment, and then, his hands find the doorknob, turning it and pulling the door open.

Rhodey is standing on the other side, wearing a thin shirt that clings to his lean, muscled frame, and sweatpants that are baggy around his equally lean legs. He has a smile on his face, a little slack at the edges, which he attributes to the whiskey, and his eyes are light.

His heart swells with love for him, and then, he throws his arms around Rhodey’s shoulders, his hands cradling Rhodey’s jaw, slanting his mouth over his.

“I kind of want to do that experiment,” he confesses.

Rhodey grins, full of teeth. “I thought you would,” he says, slyly.

Rhodey pushes him back into the room, and then, Tony’s laughing when he lands on the bed.

* * *

It’s a small wedding, something that the world wasn’t expecting from Tony Stark, but he has always loved to disappoint.

Roberta was pissed as hell when she found out that Tony and Rhodey spent the night together, against all advice woven into the fabric of the universe, but it wasn’t as though she could bemoan the loss of her son’s virtue, considering both he and his new husband were in their forties and finally getting married.

Tony, of course, had no virtue to speak of, because that was gone by the time he was thirteen and figured out what his dick was for.

They have two ceremonies. One with a pastor in the same church that Roberta and Terrance got married all those years ago in Philadelphia, and Tony is kind of glad that his mother is dead because she would have burned up rather than sit in that church, not for anything but the fact that Brahmins, and especially Iyengars, are very clear about things like that.

Tony doesn’t mind, of course, and there was something to be said about having the same kind of wedding that he’d always seen in the movies and on the television.

Tony wears a suit, and so does Rhodey, and they say all the vows, to have and to hold, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do them part.

And then, they’re married.

But it doesn’t sit well in Tony’s chest, the same way that it does Rhodey’s, because it isn’t what he imagined when he thought, as a child, of how he would get married.

It doesn’t feel real to him, not until they have a second ceremony.

Somehow, somewhere, they find a _vaadhyar_ who is willing to perform the rites for two men without flinching, and then, Tony and Rhodey are walking seven circles around the _agni_ ; they’re exchanging _maalais_ with Tony trying very hard to expertly dodge Rhodey’s quick lunges (there’s a picture of Tony laughing against Rhodey’s brow when Rhodey manages to get him with the _maalai_ with the thrill of triumph clear on his face).

Tony and Rhodey don’t get _thalis_ because they’re both men, but they do exchange _mettis_ , and it takes Rhodey sometime to get used to wearing a silver ring on his toe, but when this ceremony is done, Tony thinks he feels the same way that Rhodey did after the church ceremony ended, that they’re actually married, that something is rewritten on their insides that marks them both as being married to each other, belonging to each other, as if this was the final step they had to take in their lives together.

Their wedding night is the best sex they’ve ever had – frankly, that just proves that they shouldn’t have waited as long as they did.

* * *

Over the next two years, he gets new tally marks.

Most of them come from the palladium poisoning, but he’s also not very good at protecting himself when he’s in the middle of a fight, and he takes needless risks because he’s in his comfort zone of knowing that he’ll just wake up if something happens to him.

He gets one while building Stark Tower. He gets a couple more helping Rhodey fight the Ten Rings’ allies in Mumbai, and there are more fights with the Ten Rings in the Ghazni province with Rhodey that result in more marks. And then, they fight the Ten Rings again in Northern Sudan, and he has more marks than he had before.

When Phil Coulson is breaking into his tower, he’s at eighty-eight marks.

“Okay, you used the elevator,” Tony says, flatly.

“I did,” Coulson replies.

“You used my _private_ elevator.”

He’s on his own, because Rhodey’s in Hong Kong, raiding a Ten Rings terrorist cell to free hostages, and honestly, a part of him was looking forward to the time on his own, in his new penthouse apartment, after he’d spent the last few hours disconnecting transition lines at the bottom of the fucking ocean, so that he could install energy reactors and get the tower completely off the grid.

So, of course, SHIELD had to ruin it, this glow of triumph that he has now that Stark Tower is finally a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy.

“I did,” Coulson goes on to say. “I saw the outside.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tony grins to himself. “Levels are holding steady. Stark Tower is completely off the grid. I flew out to look at it myself.” He preens. “It looks like Christmas, but with more me.”

He turns his back on Coulson, a stupid action in hindsight, but he knows that JARVIS has his back.

“We need you to look this over.”

Tony twists his head over his shoulder, and Coulson is holding out a file.

“Oh, I don’t like being handed things.”

He’s been handed enough roofied drinks in his youth and woken up in enough beds, naked and sore and bruised with no memory of what happened the night before, to not trust things being pushed into his hands by unfamiliar people.

Coulson rolls his eyes and he puts it down on a nearby table, so that Tony can pick it up for himself. He presses the file to his chest and gives Coulson a wide-eyed look.

“Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday,” he replies, just to be a dick.

“This isn’t a consultation.”

Tony lifts an eyebrow. “Is this about the Avengers? Because I understood that particular initiative was scrapped. And I didn’t even qualify.” He tilts his head. “Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others.”

Coulson’s expression doesn’t shift an inch. “This isn’t about personality profiles anymore.”

Tony purses his lips thin, the cagey expression on his face on Phil’s face making him shift on his feet in discomfort. He pulls open the file, and then, spreads the holograms into the room.

“Huh,” he says, surveying the file.

There are five of them, he realises quickly. One of them is Bruce Banner. Tony had read his paper on anti-electron collisions and found it brilliant.

Now, he watches as Bruce Banner, looking like the most ordinary scientist Tony had ever seen, with dark hair and a solemn personality, explodes out of his skin into a giant green rage monster (it’s the only accurate way that he can explain what he’s seeing before his eyes right now).

 _The Hulk_ , the file notes.

And then, he sees Natasha Romanoff in what appears to be a black, armoured catsuit, shooting guns with an accuracy that he definitely finds attractive, beside a man in purple wielding a bow and arrow with the same precision that his partner does,

There’s a man, easily one of the more handsome men that Tony has seen, with hair like gold down to his shoulders and blue eyes, and he’s in armour, red and gold, with even a cape. In his hand, he holds a hammer, a large silver, gleaming thing which, when he brings it down on the ground, releases a shockwave that ruptures everything in its path.

The last image makes him frown.

“Why is he here?” Tony asks, confused.

“Excuse me?”

“Steve Rogers. Captain America. Why is he here? He’s dead.”

“He’s not.”

Tony twists his head so quickly that he thinks he might have strained a muscle. “What are you talking about?”

“Steve Rogers, Captain America, isn’t dead,” Coulson replies, his voice as bland as it always is.

“What are you talking about?” Tony repeats, slowly, uncomprehending.

Coulson suddenly looks awkward. “It’s all in the file, but it appears that he was in the ice all this time.”

Tony lifts an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“When he flew that plane full of bombs into the Arctic in 1945, he crashed into the ice, where he was… suspended in a state of preservation,” Coulson explains, his voice still awkward.

“And he’s alive?” Tony clarifies.

“When we got him out of the ice, we thought he’d be dead when we thawed him out, but then he had a heartbeat.”

Tony considers the file and closes his eyes. “My father would freak if he were here,” he muses, and it’s a feeble way of explaining the prickling wave of emotion sloshing around his body.

Because whether he wants to admit to it or not, his feelings about Captain America or Steve Rogers are not something settled, not something resolved or easy to understand.

He thinks of his father, all the times that he’d left him and his mother to go and search for Captain America, even just to get his body out of the water after it had been fish food for decades, but here they are now, with his father dead for twenty years and Captain America alive now.

“I think we’re all freaking.”

“What’s going on, Coulson?”

“There’s a guy; his name is Loki. He’s a god.”

Tony twists his head to stare at Coulson, his eyes wide.

* * *

It’s official, Tony hates Captain America.

He hates Steve Rogers; he hates all the iterations of this asshole in his star-spangled, glittery suit. He says as much to Rhodey on his voicemail, when the ringing goes unanswered.

It’s mostly because Steve Rogers is such a judgmental dick, and frankly, if Tony could just get one good punch into his perfect teeth, honestly, Tony would feel a _lot_ better.

But he doesn’t get to do that.

Instead, they fight, and they threaten to fight each other, and then, the ground is crumbling underneath them, and for some reason, Rogers is sliding his hand underneath his head before his skull cracks against the stone floor.

And then, he’s helping Tony to his feet, with his hands on Tony’s ribcage, and if he has to be honest, if he wasn’t married to his honeybear who really gets his motor going all the fucking time (seriously, they’re in their forties, and most of the time, they end up fucking on the floor because they can’t make it to the bed; it’s great), he’d be turned on at that big paw on his body.

But he’s married, and his erections are saved for Rhodey and only Rhodey.

He’s just not blind, and he’s around thirty-eight percent sure that if he broached the issue with Rhodey, he might be up for a threesome with Captain America.


	12. xii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Let Me Hear You" square (G5) of the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.

It doesn’t help that they’d done THE LISTÔ, and Rhodey, at some point, had jokingly put Steve Rogers’ name on Tony’s list, even though they both had thought it would never happen, and Rhodey was aware of Tony’s complicated sexual history à la Captain America (mainly because when they were drunk one night at MIT, Tony had told him that he used to have Captain America’s poster up on his wall when he was growing up, and he had his first orgasm to the thoughts of Captain America fucking him into the mattress).

That being said, he’s pretty sure that Rogers is no-homo, as straight as they can come. So, he keeps that little secret to himself, because he thinks Rogers might try to punch _him_ if he finds out.

But any and all anger that he kind of wants to throw up on Rogers has to be put in the backburner, because the Tesseract is gone, and when the rotors of the Helicarrier’s engine fling him into a metal beam, his spine snaps.

He dies.

He comes back to life still being thrown around like ragdoll by the rotors, locked up in this armour of his which almost reminds him of a metal coffin at this point, and when Rogers finally manages to pull the lever, he flies out, knocking the last one of Loki’s soldiers, pointing a machine gun at Rogers up high on the next platform.

Coulson is dead, and Thor and Banner are in the wind, and Loki has taken the Tesseract, and he’s at Tony’s tower, so Tony goes ahead of the rest of them to confront him.

The confrontation might be one of the most terrifying things that Tony has done, but it will always be surpassed by Tony lying on that couch, with Obadiah hovering above him, that greedy, sly smile fixed on his pudgy face, as he pulls the arc reactor out of his chest and taunts him with it.

Loki is different, though, different from Obadiah. There is something dark and shifting in his green eyes that reminds Tony of what Bruce had said – _that guy’s brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him_ – and he thinks, abruptly, that might be inappropriate or ableist, because he’s pretty sure there are people out there that have said similar, judgmental things about him.

But the look on Loki’s face, the lips thinning around the malicious smile that he takes on, the way that it pulls into his cheeks like scars, reminding him abruptly of the Joker, makes him shift, uneasily, reminds him of his fleshiness, of his weakness, his nakedness.

“Please tell me that you’re going to appeal to my humanity,” Loki says, his voice soft and vaguely flirtatious.

“Uh, actually, I’m planning to threaten you,” Tony replies, fiddling with his magnetic bracelets atop the bar, hidden from Loki’s view.

Loki lifts an eyebrow. “You should have left your armour on for that.”

Tony shrugs. “Yeah, it’s seen a bit of mileage. Besides, you’ve got the blue stick of destiny.” He pauses. “Would you like a drink?”

Maybe he could get Loki drunk – that’s worked for him before.

Loki’s lips twitch. “Stalling me won’t change anything,” he warns.

“No, no, no,” Tony rolls his eyes, “threatening, remember? You sure you don’t want a drink, ‘cause I’m having one.”

He absentmindedly pours himself a tumbler full of that orange-brown liquid sitting in one of the decanters. He raises it to his mouth, while Loki makes his way over to stare out of the sprawling window of Tony’s penthouse.

Figures, scotch.

“The Chitauri are coming,” Loki says, his voice thick with triumph, practically seeping from the words. “Nothing will change that. What have I to fear?”

“The Avengers,” Tony replies, his voice not shuddering an inch.

Loki peers at him, half-confused, half-smug.

“It’s what we call ourselves,” Tony goes on to explain, “sort of like a team. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, type of thing.”

Loki snorts. “Yes, I’ve met them,” he taunts.

Tony grimaces. “Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one.” He slides the bracelets onto his wrists, and they’re cool against his skin, like molten gold. “But let’s do a head count here. Your brother, the demi-god-”

Loki hates his brother so much that his face twists to show that hate, plain as day.

“-a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend, and believe me, coming from me, that is one hell of a compliment; a man with breathtaking anger management issues; a couple of master assassins, and _you_ , big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them.”

He comes around from behind the bar.

Loki spreads his hands out, grandly. “That was the plan.”

Tony’s brow furrows. “Not a great plan,” he says, carefully. “Because when they come, and they will, they’ll come for you.”

“I have an army,” Loki reminds him, his voice turning heated.

“We have a Hulk,” Tony retorts, without hesitation.

“Oh, I thought the beast had wandered off.”

Tony shakes his head, his heart pounding in his ribcage, his organs fisting hard against the arc reactor that still seems like such a foreign object even after all these years.

“You are missing the point,” Tony stresses. “There is no _throne_ ; there is no version of this, where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it.”

He breathes slowly, deeply, and the blood slows to a crawl in his veins, as he stands directly opposite to this man who is not a man.

He’s always felt strong, untouched, steady, because he knew that the marks would protect him, that he would die and he would awaken, and all he would have to show for it was another black line on his body.

But these are gods and glowing blue cubes and aliens plummeting from the sky and other things that he doesn’t know how to explain – what’s to say that if they kill him, he won’t just die like everyone else does?

Loki saunters towards him, prowling like a jungle cat, and the fear slithers up into Tony’s throat, as he brandishes the sceptre.

“How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?” he croons.

Loki taps Tony on the arc reactor with the point of the sceptre, and Tony waits for his blood to turn to ice in his veins, waits for his every thought to be centred around Loki and what he wants and how Tony can possibly help him and what Tony can do for him, and then, there’s nothing.

Tony tastes blood in his mouth, coppery like pennies, from where he’s chewed on the inside of his cheek, but he doesn’t feel anything else.

He doesn’t feel Loki crawling around in his brain; he doesn’t feel the abrupt, urgent need to prostrate himself before this god of lies and beg for his favour.

He just feels like himself.

He glances at Loki’s face, and sees what he supposes is the same bemusement that he feels mirrored on Loki’s handsome face.

Loki tries again, and the sharp sound that the sceptre makes when it taps on Tony’s arc reactor makes Tony’s teeth rattle, but he only tastes the blood in his mouth.

Loki’s brow furrows. “It should work,” he says, slowly.

Tony’s throat flexes. “Well, performance issues,” he says, lightly, in an attempt to distract Loki and himself from the furious pounding of his half-heart against the arc reactor that seems so wide, so present, so encompassing in his chest. “You know? I mean, it’s not something I suffer from as of yet, but apparently, one out of five-”

Loki’s long, pale fingers curl around Tony’s throat, cutting off his access to breathe, and his lungs are straining. Loki lifts him by that single hand, as if Tony is made of something fluffy like cotton candy, and then, he throws him.

Tony hits the ground _hard_ , skidding across the floor, which burns against the skin bared by his t-shirt and jeans. He’s on fire, and his chest is hurting.

“JARVIS,” he manages to drag out, “anytime now.”

Loki fists his hand in Tony’s hair, dragging him to his feet, and Tony grits his teeth against the sting.

“You will all fall before me,” Loki grinds out.

“JARVIS? Deploy, deploy!”

Loki throws Tony hard, and the glass shatters under the weight of his body.

Shards slice into his back, into his neck, and he sees black.

When his eyes open, he’s plummeting to the ground at a freefall, the ground rising at an alarming rate, and he can hear the screams of those standing on the streets, watching what appears to be his slow fall to death.

His stomach drops, fills with cold lead, and then, he thrusts out his arms, without thinking.

The armour surrounds him like a glove, and he can finally breathe.

He throws himself up into the sky, back towards the penthouse apartment, and Loki’s eyes slide from watching him fall to his death to him staring down at Loki in his armour, strong and fierce as Iron Man.

“How did you survive?” Loki asks, stupidly.

“I’m determined,” Tony replies, coldly, and then, fires his gauntlet at Loki before he can even think to put his hands on the sceptre to defend himself.

He’s ready to keep fighting Loki, knowing that the blast from the gauntlet isn’t enough to keep him down for long, but then, a beam is lurching up from the penthouse’s terrace up into the sky, and then, the sky splits.

It splits like a gash across the front, and the Chitauri army is spilling from the open seams, straddling flying chariots, carrying rifles with a bayonet on the end that fire, ready to destroy the city in their wake.

“Right.” Tony’s shoulders slump. “Army.”

Tony flies up towards the portal, and from his shoulders, a miniature multiple rocket launcher, pops out and fires. Like his renowned Jericho missile, several of the Chitauri are destroyed upon contact, but it’s not enough because there are thousands, quite literally, flying out towards the city.

Tony flies back towards the city, just as the Chitauri descend into the city, blowing up cars, setting storefronts aflame.

Flame and stone rain down on the city, the explosions rippling across the scape, and Tony starts shooting Chitauri soldiers, knocking them out of the sky before they ever see him coming.

And then they catch on, quite quickly, and start trailing after him.

 _Great_ , he thinks.

“Stark,” Romanoff’s voice comes crackling over the comms, “we're heading northeast.”

“What, did you stop for drive-thru?” Tony demands. “Swing up Park, I'm gonna lay ‘em out for you.”

He banks around the tower, spotting Thor and Loki fighting on the terrace of his building out of the corner of his eye. He swoops down the street, causing one of the Chitauri to crash. Flying up, he puts the Chitauri lagging behind him in view of the Quinjet, dodging out of the way, just as Romanoff, in front of the gun, fires at them indiscriminately.

Tony peers up at the sky, where the wormhole sits.

“Sir, we have more incoming,” JARVIS tells him.

“Great,” Tony mutters under his breath. “Can you put Rhodey through, J?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Tony?” Rhodey says, confused. “Tony, what’s going on?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, do you think you could maybe hightail it to New York in the next, oh, I don’t know, five minutes?” Tony asks, purposefully making his voice light so as to not worry his husband.

“I’m in Hong Kong, and you know that,” Rhodey reminds him, his voice teasing. “Even at supersonic speeds, it’ll take me an hour or so. You all right?”

Tony sobers at once. “There’s a situation going on.”

“What kind of situation?” Rhodey asks, warily.

“Like aliens and demi-gods and magic, and an actual Independence Day, possible world-ending invasion,” Tony offers.

“What the fuck,” is all that Rhodey can manage to say.

“Yeah, it’s a thing, and there are a lot of aliens destroying New York, Rhodey. We could really use the extra firepower, if you can bring it. Oh, and Captain America is alive.”

Rhodey chokes. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Captain America is alive, and the Avengers are a thing, and there are alien gods running amuck in New York, Rhodey.” Tony falls quiet. “Two more marks.”

Rhodey hisses. “What?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, quietly. “Look, don’t worry about it.”

“An hour,” Rhodey promises. “Give me an hour, let me wrap things up here, and I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” Tony hesitates, “I love you.”

“I love you too, baby. Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“Me? Never,” Tony scoffs, derisively. He softens. “Be safe.”

“Always.”

And the comm shuts off.

Tony stares up at the sky, and his heart digs hard into the arc reactor. “Okay, then, JARVIS. Let’s keep these things occupied.”

* * *

Tony breaks his promise to Rhodey a couple of times in the course of the battle: when he pushes his way through the Chitauri leviathan like he really is Jonah, and when he leads another leviathan towards the gathered Avengers on the ground, just as Bruce turns around and morphs into the Hulk in the span of a moving moment and punches the metal beast right in the face, turning it up onto its side, so that Tony can shoot the rest of it apart and make it rain fire and scrap-metal.

But he thinks the greatest sin that he commits in this battle, the greatest breach of that promise to his husband, is when Fury contacts him, saying, “Stark, you hearing me? We have a missile headed straight for the city.”

Tony’s teeth grind together. “How long?”

“Three minutes, at best. Stay low and wipe out the missile,” Fury says, his voice terse.

The comm shuts off, and he closes his eyes, just as a horde of Chitauri overwhelms him, throwing him to the ground.

“Fuck,” Tony curses, fighting off as many of the soldiers as he can. “JARVIS, put everything we have into the thrusters.”

“I just did,” JARVIS rebukes, softly.

Tony flies up into the sky.

“I can close it!” Romanoff shouts into the comm. “Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!”

“Do it!” comes Rogers’ urgent, relieved voice.

“No, wait!” Tony counters, a knot burning in his throat.

“Stark, these things are still coming!” Rogers protests.

“I have a nuke coming in,” Tony tells all of them. “It’s gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it.”

Tony flies towards the bridge, coming at the missile from behind. The missile speeds on, and Tony grabs onto it from behind it, gripping it tightly. With a herculean effort, he manages to wrench the missile off its course. Steering it from behind, he accelerates quickly, flying straight up into the sky, towards the wormhole glinting high above.

“Stark,” Rogers’ voice sounds faint, resigned, soft, “you know that's a one-way trip?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Tony retorts and shuts off that comm. He purses his lips. “Save the rest for return, J.”

“Sir,” JARVIS says, hesitantly, barely biting back his grief, “shall I call Colonel Rhodes?”

Tony’s throat flexes. “You might as well.”

It’s a torturous wait, and then, the call goes through.

“Tony, Tony, I’m on my way, I promise,” Rhodey says, sounding out of breath. “I’ve left Hong Kong now; everything’s as good as it possibly can be over there, but I’m on my way, I promise. I should be there in like half an hour.”

“Rhodey,” Tony takes a deep breath, “Rhodey, I’m sorry.”

“Why? Why are you sorry?” Rhodey asks, confused.

“Because I have to break my promise.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“There’s a nuke, heading straight for New York, and I have to stop it, and I’m going to put it through the wormhole.”

“Tony.”

Tony closes his eyes.

“Is that… can you come back from that?” Rhodey asks, every single word that comes out precise and calculated, like a surgeon’s knife cutting into a stale body.

“I don’t know,” Tony says, honestly, his throat cinching shut. “I don’t know. I’d like to think that I can survive it, but I don’t know, because… this seems like it’s more than whatever happens to me, Rhodey. It’s more than anything that we’ve dealt with before. I don’t know if I can survive it and come back on the other side and just have another mark to show for it. I don’t know if this is just one of the things that I can’t come back from.”

“So, don’t do it,” Rhodey says, frustrated. “Get someone else to do it. Tony, Tony, don’t do this.”

“There’s no one else to do it,” Tony says, almost pleading with him. “It’s me. It has to be me. I’m almost there, I’m almost at the wormhole. I don’t have much time left before this nuke goes off.”

“Tony, please.” Rhodey’s voice is thick, choked. “Tony, please, please don’t do this. Please don’t leave me like this.”

“I love you, and I couldn’t lie to you, not this time. I made you a promise before, with the palladium, and I’m keeping that promise. I just… I couldn’t not talk to you, not when this might be...” Tony trails off, almost to tears. He gathers himself together (this is not the moment for him to shatter). “I love you. You’re the love of my life. Thank you for everything; thank you for loving me, for making me feel so loved.”

“Tony,” Rhodey sobs out, “Tony, you’re the love of my life too. I love you. _I love you._ ” He pauses, and his voice is weaker this time, a thin, feeble version of what it usually is. “Don’t go, don’t leave me, Tony, please, please don’t leave me.”

The wormhole looms closer and closer, and the missile feels hot against his gauntlets.

“I don’t have another choice,” Tony whispers, a long, breathless second heaving against his lungs. “There’s no time, I’m sorry. It has to be me. I love you, I love you, I love–”

And then, he’s going through the wormhole, and the call ends, and JARVIS fades away.

He’s alone, and what he’s staring at causes the blood to turn to ice in his veins.

It’s an armada, the dark, depthless void filled with hundreds and hundreds of ships, waiting to burn the earth to a cinder, and he knows, he knows that they could do it, that his small, fragile little planet would never survive what this army wants to do to it.

The Avengers wouldn’t be enough; _they_ wouldn’t be enough; they’d be dead even before they even tried to beat them back.

Earth will need more, he realises, more than them.

They are not enough for what’s coming, because there’s something else; this is not the end of it, even if he dies here and takes all of them down with him.

There’s something else, something that he should know but can’t name, something that is grating at the inside of his brain, claws at his chest, and there’s a gaping maw where his gut used to be.

He releases the missile.

It surges off into the void, and Tony is drifting down, staring, waiting, and then, the missile bursts apart, and there’s fire in space, raining and burning down the main ship, the entire armada exploding into a supernova in a cataclysmic effect.

There is fire everywhere, and the fire is the last thing that Tony sees before his eyes close and he falls.

* * *

There’s a roar, and he’s surging awake with a shout.

He’s on the ground, and he can feel some piece of scrap metal, digging uncomfortably into his bone and muscle where the plating had worn away.

Rogers is hovering above him, on his knees by Tony’s hip, and Thor is there, staring down at him, worriedly, and the Hulk is fluttering around the side, and Tony realises that it was the Hulk whose shout had wrenched Tony into awareness.

“Huh,” he says, breathing hard and heavy. “What just happened?” He peers at them. “Please tell me that nobody kissed me,” he says, warily. “Because I’m married, and they’re the jealous type.”

Rogers’ brow furrows. “You’re married?” he says, bemused.

Tony sits up with some help from Rogers. “What, that wasn’t in the file that SHIELD gave you?” he asks, snarking slightly, because he’s still a little sore about the shit that Rogers had slung his way in the Helicarrier.

Rogers shrugs. “It clearly wasn’t.”

“Huh, maybe SHIELD doesn’t know everything,” Tony muses, unable to stop himself from grinning. “So, no one answered. What the fuck happened?”

Rogers takes a deep breath. “We won.”

“Oh, thank God,” Tony says, heavily. He thumps his fist against his forehead. “Alright. Alright. Good job, guys,” he says, feigning joy. “Let’s just, uh, let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s just take a fucking skip day, okay?”

He lets himself fall back onto the pavement, the back of the helm protecting himself from further injury.

“Have you ever tried shawarma?” Tony asks, directing his question to Rogers in particular.

Rogers actually cracks a smile, lending to Tony the idea that he actually has a sense of humour.

“There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it,” Tony tells him. He pauses. “Actually, I’m like seventy-eight percent sure that I can’t eat anything there, but I’m kind of hoping that they have vine leaves, because I’m craving them now.”

Rogers looks at him, solemnly, and then, his eyes drag to Thor, who is looking up at Stark Tower.

“We’re not finished yet,” Thor says, solemnly, his voice grave.

Tony realises what he means and closes his eyes. “Shawarma after, then.”

* * *

When Loki is detained and in SHIELD custody, and Tony is staring at the wreckage that is left of his penthouse apartment, he feels a stirring of anger.

“That fucking douchebag,” he declares, staring at the imprint of Loki’s body carved into the stone floor.

“What’s wrong?” Romanoff asks, tired.

“My apartment, look at my apartment.”

“There’s this thing called privilege; you might want to look it up in the dictionary,” Romanoff retorts.

“Oh, I’m sorry, white woman, did I offend you?” Tony flings back, and Romanoff colours.

“Touché,” Romanoff responds, simply.

“Besides, I was complaining because Rhodey hasn’t seen the place yet, and now, he’s going to come home to _this_ ,” Tony says, flatly.

“You can fix it, can’t you?” Romanoff comments, coming to stand beside him, staring down at Loki’s imprint.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Tony replies, grudgingly.

He looks at his phone.

_54 NEW MESSAGES._

“Shit,” Tony mutters. He dials Rhodey back immediately.

“Tony?” Rhodey demands, and Tony can hear the way that he breathes sharp and hot, like he’s barely keeping the emotion within his body. “Tony, where are you? Are you okay? What the fuck is going on?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay, honey,” Tony soothes and turns on his feet, making his way into one of the adjoining rooms for some privacy.

He shuts the door behind him.

“What the hell happened?” Rhodey asks, his voice thin and taut. “Last thing I hear from you, you’re literally carrying a nuke into a fucking wormhole, giving me your goodbyes, and then, nothing. I get nothing. What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s okay, I’m okay,” Tony promises.

“Tony, you’re not explaining anything,” Rhodey snaps at him. “I need more words than just _I’m okay_ , because the last time that we fucking spoke, you were telling me goodbye because you were about to fucking _die_. I need more than that, Tony.”

Tony’s ears are ringing.

He sighs and drags his hand over his face. “I went through the wormhole,” he begins, haltingly, the blood slowing to a crawl in his veins when he remembers what it was like, passing the threshold between earth and space, the cold that had leached through the armour and into his skin and bone. “I went through the wormhole, and I saw them, Rhodey. I saw them.”

Rhodey is silent for a moment. “What did you see?”

“I saw aliens,” Tony says in a small voice. “I saw all of them. They were… there were so many of them, Rhodey. Too many, to fucking many, too many for _us_. I, I let the nuke go, and it destroyed the mothership, and when I destroyed the mothership, it killed all of the Chitauri here on Earth, maybe everywhere.”


End file.
